Overview
Region
West Africa
Cote d'Ivoire
Era
Contemporary
Language
French
Genre
Fiction
About This Work
Birahima, a 12-year-old child soldier in Sierra Leone and Liberia, narrates his journey through the wars with savage humor and moral clarity, consulting four dictionaries to describe events that no dictionary can contain.
Literary Significance
Won the Prix Renaudot and Prix Goncourt des Lyceens 2000; a landmark novel about the child soldier experience