Just named the winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award, a $10,000 prize given by the New York Public Library, Uzodinma Iweala is a 23-year-old Harvard graduate who lives in both Washington DC and Lagos, Nigeria.
Utterly compelling and original in voice, his debut novel "Beasts Of No Nation" marks the arrival of an extremely talented young writer unafraid to limn the darkest impulses of mankind. Iweala tells a harrowing tale of a child-soldier's quick descent into the hell of war. Powerful in its depiction of the civil war that engulfs an unnamed West African nation, the novel offers an emotionally unsparing look at the cruelties and depravities of recruiting children for war. In textured language that gives voice to an unforgettable adolescent narrator, Iweala's work both haunts and surprises with its portrayal of a young conscript into a world of unimaginable horror. Critical praise for "Beasts Of No Nation" has been overwhelming.- Cody's Books
Bio
Uzodinma Iweala
Uzodinma Iweala was born in 1982 in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Harvard University, where he was a Mellon Mays Scholar and received a number of prizes for his writing, including the Eager Prize, the Horman Prize, the Le Baron Briggs Prize, and the Hoopes Prize, awarded for outstanding undergraduate thesis. "Beasts of No Nation" is his first book.
Brutal. Powerful. Sickening. Worth viewing. It's a new literary experience. Having this kind of work read in the voice of the author who knows and owns the context of his book is a revelation.