However, the vagueness in the book about time and place, the snapshots of events described in vivid detail, the impotence and powerlessness of the individual are so recognisably child-like. It is so easy to forget that the 'solider' who is writing his story was at this point probably ten years old – probably, because Jal does not know his date of birth. His descriptions of the violence in the villages, amongst the SPLA and between the SPLA and the jellabas are grotesque, perhaps more than ordinarily so as they are written in such a matter-of-fact manner.

He lived in a world where death had become an everyday occurrence. However, his descriptions of what happens when manages to achieve his aim are not for the squeamish. Jal is proud to be a solider, and he lives only for the hatred he feels for the jallabas, the Muslim Sudanese who shelled his family. Indoctrination of children into killing machines mitigates against relationships. The possible solace of friendship between the boys is discouraged, with vicious whippings as punishments. He is swept into the army of the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army), where extreme hardship is ordinary. From the moment that his father fails to rescue him after a river boat accident, leaving him to fend for himself, Jal is betrayed by almost everyone that he tries to become intimate with. Not only because of what Jal is trained to do as a soldier, and what he does do when he goes into battle, but because of the psychological and physical brutality that is meted out to him. No – much more – it is a horrifying story. This is the first book that I have read which tells the story of war from the point of view of a small boy carrying an AK-47, a gun taller than he is himself. There are a number of books about the Sudan by western aid workers and journalists, who do, I am sure, write fluently and passionately about the horror of Darfur. He has written his story in order to help those children who are still fighting, and those who have managed to get away. Then, we should act.Įmmanuel Jal, internationally successful rap artist, spent his childhood as a solider in his native Sudan. Summary: We should all read this book, and weep.

War Child by Emmanuel Jal