| ...a hauntingly beautiful elegy for those who killed and died in the service of a history that was not their own. Like Ha Jin's magisterial War Trash, Burma Boy wields the two greatest weapons in the novelist's arsenal – imagination and empathy – to shattering effect
James Schamus, producer Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm
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A few months ago fourteen-year-old Ali Banana was apprenticed to a whip-wielding blacksmith in his rural hometown. Now its winter 1944, the war is entering its most crucial stage and Ali is a private in Thunder Brigade. His unit has been given orders to go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. But the Burmese jungle is a mud-riven, treacherous place, riddled with Japanese snipers, insanity and disease.
Burma Boy is a horrific, vividly realised account of the madness, the sacrifice and the dark humour of the Second World War's most vicious battleground. It's also the moving story of a boy trying to live long enough to become a man.
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| A gripping narrative - by turns pathetic, comic and exciting
Sunday Times
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| A novel that resonates across the pages with the narrative mastery of the griot's voice.
Wole Soyinka
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| A riveting read, convincingly imagined and cinematically told. Bandele is a gifted storyteller.
Linton Kwesi Johnson
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| A superb Second World War adventure - tender and funny
The Times
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| A truly fantastic book. A caesarean cut through terrifying and hilarious history
Sven Lindqvist
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| As humane, ridiculous and moving as Waugh's novels of the world at war
Ronan Bennett
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| Fascinating...unusual...invigorating...and very funny
Observer
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| Original ...often very funny. A magical book.
Kevin MacDonald, Director: The Last King of Scotland
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| Vividly recreates the violence and drama of a forgotten war, describing the camaraderie between fighting men with humour and compassion.
Maggie Gee
More
Information
Vintage • General & literary fiction • Previous
ISBN: 0099488981
Publication date: 05/06/2008 • 224 pages • B format • EAN: 9780099488989 |
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