Product Description

Part Inferno, part Paradise Lost, and part Sunjiata epic, Song for Night is the story of a West African boy soldier's lyrical, terrifying, yet beautiful journey through the nightmare landscape of a brutal war in search of his lost platoon. The reader is led by the voiceless protagonist who, as part of a land mine-clearing platoon, had his vocal chords cut; a move to keep these children from screaming when blown up, and thereby distracting the other minesweepers. Written in a ghostly voice, each chapter is headed by a line of the unique sign language these children invented. This book is unlike anything else ever written about an African war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #297183 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 164 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781933354316
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In his latest novella, Abani renders the inner voice of mute 15-year-old My Luck, the boy leader of a platoon of mine sweepers in an unnamed war-torn African country. When he was 12, the then volunteer rebel had his vocal cords severed (the rest of his team received the same treatment), so that we wouldn't scare each other with our death screams. At the opening of the novella, My Luck awakens after an explosion to find that he has been separated from his unit. During his journey to find his platoon, he reflects on the events of his violent life. Abani is unafraid to evoke My Luck's dark side, and though My Luck's experience with killing is a singular joy that is perhaps rivaled only by an orgasm, his stock-taking also touches on guilt at witnessing his mother's murder, ambivalence about his imam father and tenderness for Ijeoma, a girl in his platoon killed by a mine. Initially, the present-tense narration is at odds with My Luck's inclination toward memory and reflection, but the story becomes more immersive and dreamlike (and, strangely, lucid) over the course of My Luck's quest. Abani finds in his narrator a seed of hope amid the bleak, nihilistic terrain. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Trained as a human mine detector, an Igbo boy soldier in West Africa witnesses and takes part in unspeakable brutality. His clipped, dispassionate narrative tells of mutilation, rape, massacre. But tells is the wrong word. He has not spoken for three years since, at 12, his vocal cords were deliberately cut so that he would not scream and give away his platoon's presence if he was blown up. After an explosion, he travels back in search of his comrades through abandoned villages and rotting corpses—and through his own memories. As he did in Becoming Abigail (2006), Abani, who was himself jailed and tortured in Nigeria, never backs away from a gruesome detail, but the gore is never sensationalized. The horror of what happens to this Igbo boy is intensified by his confusion and his tenderness. He remembers his mother taught him to crochet; she died hiding him. Ijeoma, the girl he loved, comforted him after he was forced to rape a captive. Then Ijeoma stepped on a mine. His words, "I miss her," say it all. Rochman, Hazel

About the Author

Chris Abani is a Nigerian poet and novelist and the author of The Virgin of Flames, Becoming Abigail (a New York Times Editors' Choice), and GraceLand (a selection of the Today Show Book Club; winner of the 2005 PEN/Hemingway Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). His other prizes include a PEN Freedom-to-Write Award, a Prince Claus Award, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He lives and teaches in California.

Customer Reviews

War From a Child's Vantage
In SONG FOR NIGHT author Chris Abani has achieved what few authors have even dared - relating the grisly aspects of war as seen through the eyes of a warrior child. The mixture of innocence and participation in some of the most gruesome details of war make this novel difficult to read, yet at the same time Abani's narrator, My Luck, is a young lad with whom we not only completely identify in his sharing of his experiences, but also grow to love profoundly. This small book is not only exquisitely crafted - it is a genuine and heartrending little masterpiece.

A West African war-torn nation (probably Abani's own Nigeria where he himself was the victim of the brutality of war) uses children as soldiers. My Luck is part of a small mine diffusing unit, a group of children who were placed in boot camp at age twelve and now at age fifteen are the delicate triggers that determine the presence of field mines, diffusing them, and gathering the then safe mines for weapons for their 'Major'. The children are 'treated' with a surgery that destroys their vocal cords, a brutal means of assuring that when one of the children steps on a live mine his voice will not cry out, signaling the presence of the war unit to the rebels. These mute young soldiers bond, lose each other, and do as they are instructed, creating a life of danger, terror and probable early death, all before they have had the luxury of growing into adults.

My Luck's narration begins as he is thrown in the air by a detonated mine, his fellow 'soldiers' and company believing him dead have left him unconscious in the dirt. My Luck's story is that of a search for his fellow soldiers, a search that triggers recollections of his childhood, his love for a young girl Ijeoma who is killed by a hidden mine, his recurring memories of his nurturing Catholic mother and his deeply religious Muslim father, his being forced by his commander to rape a woman to prove his manhood, his contact with his elders in visions, his perception of ghosts as his mind and body are starved for food, water, and safety, and his narrowly escaping his enemy's discovery by floating down a river of corpses. My Luck's vision of the world is at once conflicted with a sense of exhilaration that at times equates killing with orgasm. Yet as we follow his mute journey he enters our psyche the way few others characters drawn from the 'world as war' have gained our hearts. 'These are memories. Before we can move from here, we have to relive and release our darkness'.

Abani somehow manages to relate this grisly tale with such sensitive poetic form that he opens windows of light that illuminate both the essence of life and of death. 'Here we believe that when a person dies in a sudden and hard way, their spirit wanders confused looking for its body. Confused because they don't realize they are dead. I know this. Traditionally a shaman would ease such a spirit across to the other world. Now, well, the land is crowded with confused spirits and all the shamans are soldiers.' This is a brilliant little book by a gifted artist. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 07

A Beautiful, Yet Haunting Serenade
Chris Abani turns the horrors and atrocities of war into a lyrical treasure in his novella, Song for Night. My Luck is a 15-year-old Igbo mine diffuser who is "simply fighting to survive the war." My Luck's struggle to survive forces him to commit unforgivable acts of war. He witnesses horrors that no adult, let alone a teenage boy, should see. He awakes one morning to find himself separated from his platoon. As he searches for his lost comrades, he is haunted by memories of his family, fellow soldiers and the innocent people that lost their lives to the war.

Abani's writing is poetic even though the verses are of war, death and suffering. Abani finds the light of childhood, love and innocence among the darkness of hate. Song for Night gives readers an up close and personal look at war from the eyes of a child soldier. Readers also get a glimpse of West African culture and beliefs as My Luck recalls his grandfather's stories. Song for Night is an excellent choice for those looking for a poignant tale of life, love and war that expands their reading horizons beyond mainstream literature.

Reviewed by M. P. McKinney
APOOO BookClub

A Literary Song
I am a graduate student at Goddard College and the author of Song For Night, Chris Abani, will be reading from one of his works at my next residency. That's why I picked up this book, and I was satified that my College choose Abani as a guest reader. I never spoil stories, so I'm going to talk about Abani's style as opposed to his content. He writes very beautifully in this book, with words and phrases that are poetic in their description, even when the event described is horrific. And make no mistakes, this is not a pleasant tale. The narrator of the story has lived through pretty much the worst that life has to offer. But this is not to say the story takes itself too seriously, or is over-dramatic. Abani's narrator simply states the facts from his perspective, and you never once suspect Abani of feeling like one section or another will "blow the reader's mind." This is admirable because I think to have that thought at all would remind a reader that they are reading, as opposed to being caught up in a story and experiencing it for themselves.
Abani use of language, his style of having a consistent voice whether the event transpiring is bombastic of contemplative, keeps this story strong and trustworthy. This book is worth reading by any adult, and will hopefully expand the global perspective of its reader. It did mine.