At once both victims and survivors, the small soldiers are the prized possession of the warlords with their AK-47 kalashes and drugged out on hashish. Through warlords, thieves, corrupt leaders, NGOs and multinationals, opportunists and charlatans, marabouts and animists, coups and counter-coups, we are exposed to the lives of the child-soldiers. In those seven hours I followed the narrator, 10-year-old Birahima, across West Africa into the heart of Liberia and Sierra Leone and into the psychotic minds of dictators Houphouet-Boigny of Côte dIvoire and Sani Abachi of Nigeria. This was my first reading of Kourouma, which I started at 11am and finished around 6.30pm.

√llah is not obliged to be fair about all things he does here on earth is the mantra that weaves itself through this remarkable novel by Ahmadou Kourouma. ‘Ai remember when I was a soja’: Biyi Bandele’s ‘B.Allah is Not Obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma translated from the French by Frank Wynne.Book review: Chika Unigwe’s ‘On Black Sisters' Str.Book Review: Kaine Agary’s ‘Yellow-Yellow’.Book Review: Daoud Hari's ‘The Translator: A Tribe.Book Review: Toni Kan’s ‘Nights of the Creaking Bed’.Book Review: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's 'I Do Not Co.Book Review: Helon Habila's 'Measuring Time'.Book Review: Chuma Nwokolo Jr.'s 'Diaries of a Dea.An Oldie, but a Goodie: Ferdinand Oyono's 'Houseboy'.An African Booklover's Christmas Wishlist.African Authors on the New York Times' 2011 Notabl.Book Review: Ahmadou Kourouma's 'Allah Is Not Obli.Book Review: Doreen Baingana's 'Tropical Fish: Tal.Allah is Not Obliged, Kourouma's last novel, raises important questions about corruption, West African dictators, civil wars, child soldiers, and the innocent people that get affected by these wars. We not only read Birahima's experience as a child soldier, in his writing, Kourouma also gives us a short history of the dictators and the events that led to the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leonne. Child soldiers, the prized possessions of warlords, are armed with their AK-47s 'kalashes', drugged up with hashish and protected by prayers. T hrough his story we meet dictators, warlords, thieves, grigrimen, and child soldiers. Set in the nineties in the middle of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leonne, Birahima is one foul-mouthed 10 (or 12) year old who explains French, African and pidgin words using the dictionaries he inherited. Published in French as Allah n'est pas obligé in 2000 and translated in 2006 by Frank Wynne, Allah Is Not Obliged tells the story of Birahima, an orphan who becomes a child soldier while he travels to Liberia to find his aunt. 'Allah is not obliged to be fair about all things he does on here on earth'.