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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About the Author
Biyi Bandele is an award-winning novelist, playwright and director. He was born in Kafanchan, Nigeria in 1967, the son of a veteran of the Burma campaign. His plays have been seen at the Royal Court Theatre, the Gate Theatre, the Barbican, and have been performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. He lives in London. In 2006 he was named by the Independent as one of Africa's fifty most important artists.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A novel that honors the soldiers in the WWII Burma campaign as well as any history,
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This review is from: Burma Boy (Hardcover)
This coming-of-age novel of a Nigerian soldier, humorously named Ali Banana, in the Burma campaign during World War II is simply marvelous ... enchanting ... charming ... and unforgettable. It's comic and tragic. The merry verve of Nigerian English infuses the dialogs. So does the banter of Hausas, Yorubas, Ibos, and Tivs thrown together in the same unit -- and the reactions of their sometimes perplexed British officers and NCOs.As the Nigerians deploy into Burma, the lighthearted scenes turn horrific as they fight off Japanese suicide formations attempting to dislodge them from White City. And there are ... the leeches. The gifted Nigerian playwright Biyi Bandele took the war stories he heard from his father and added what he learned from background research on the troops from Britain's African colonies fighting the Japanese in Burma, the 1944 campaign of the Chindits, and the legendary commander of the Chindits, Major General Orde Wingate. "Burma Boy" (the American edition is titled "The King's Rifle") is fiction. Yet this lively novel commemorates the campaign and honors its ordinary soldiers as well as any history. The personal account of the Burma campaign written by George MacDonald Frazier, "Quartered Safe Out Here," is one of the best memoirs written by a private soldier from any nation during the entire war -- take John Keegan's word for it. "Burma Boy" well merits a place on the bookshelf next to it. -30-
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