By Chris Abani
"The second you input those pages, you step right into a appealing and terrifying dream. you're within the arms of a grasp, a literary shaman. Abani casts his spell so completely—so devastatingly—you emerge cleansed, redeemed, and totally haunted."—Brad Kessler, writer of Birds in Fall
Part Inferno, half Paradise Lost, and half Sunjiata epic, Song for Night is the tale of a West African boy soldier’s lyrical, terrifying, but appealing trip in the course of the nightmare panorama of a brutal conflict looking for his misplaced platoon. The reader is led via the unvoiced protagonist who, as a part of a land mine-clearing platoon, had his vocal chords reduce, a flow to maintain those teenagers from screaming while blown up, and thereby distracting the opposite minesweepers. The publication is written in a ghostly voice, with every one bankruptcy headed by means of a line of the original signal language those kids invented. This booklet is in contrast to anything ever written approximately an African war.
Chris Abani is a Nigerian poet and novelist and the writer of The Virgin of Flames, Becoming Abigail (a New York Times Editor’s Choice), and GraceLand (a number of the Today Show publication membership and winner of the 2005 PEN/Hemingway Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). His different prizes contain a PEN Freedom to jot down Award, a Prince Claus Award, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He lives and teaches in California.
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Extra info for Song for Night: A Novella
I'm so clumsy, I permit it fall. As I droop to select it up, he asks me if i've got come for him. I shake my head, now not figuring out what he skill. “You should not a demon? ” he asks. I shake my head pondering the entire outdated infantrymen during this city needs to be shellshocked. I pay attention the opposite squaddies giggling approximately how the older guy consistently sees ghosts and demons coming for him. i ponder why he thinks i'm a ghost. How do ghosts seem? simply then he increases his revolver. “Go now! ” he screams. i'm already disappearing into the evening while he fires. The bullet tears earlier me harmlessly. I conceal in a bombed-out residence extra down the road. “Crazy fucks,” I mutter. i'm nonetheless maintaining onto the chook. I take a chew. It tastes strong. A Thumb within the Air, Clicking an Imaginary Lighter this can be what we have been informed: within the military, one mile is one click on. It skill not anything to us past military communicate, so this can be how we signal it: a thumb clicking an imaginary lighter held among arms palmed right into a fist. The variety of clicks equals the variety of miles. uncomplicated particularly. I don’t understand how many clicks i've got traveled but; has to be much notwithstanding. I stretch within the early sunlight. The bird final evening was once strong yet i'm hungry again—however, if this city is stuffed with previous shellshocked, trigger-happy farts, then i have to depart. nonetheless, there isn't any damage in searching for one other meal meanwhile. The solar is excessive within the sky and the roads are melting from the warmth, the tar coming away in sticky licorice strings with each step. except a number of die-hard investors and a checklist store enjoying high-life tunes at complete blast, there are just a few scraggy canines lounging round, tongues lolling insanely, and that i ponder whether they're rabid. I come to a decision to not take any percentages and stay away from them. although the city appears abandoned, i do know it isn’t. everyone seems to be simply hiding from the potential for a surprising blitz. I make my technique to a decrepit and deserted eating place. considering that I won’t have any good fortune begging, I choose to deal with myself to no matter what i will free up. I stroll in the back of the counter, open the refrigerator, and aid myself to a chilly bottle of Coca-Cola. there isn't any electrical energy so the refrigerator needs to be kerosene-powered. there's a few dry, weevil-infested bread at the counter and that i wash it down with the Coke. Weevils are protein, I determine. The meals and the sugar from the Coke supply me a burst of power. I choose to go away city. I have already got rather a lot floor to hide if I intend to meet up with my platoon. I stroll during the untidy unfold. it truly is as if a person has thrown the homes down in a huff. town is equipped on a moderate hill and the homes seem like spangles marching up the part of a doughnut. Glancing round, i suppose i've got came across the poorer half as the homes have heavily urgent partitions of corrugated iron and cardboard and open sewers working out entrance. right here, youngsters, bare, many carrying sores attended by means of tomb flies, run during the slender alleys screaming in play, unafraid of bombing raids. There are not any adults in sight with the exception of a pregnant lady who lounges in a single of the open doors, cooling herself down with a raffia fan.