The Americanization of the Child Soldier Narrative

Abstract

In less than a decade, the child soldier narrative has changed form and audience, relocating from post-colonial African fiction to North American autobiographical memoir, a change I will refer to as “Americanization.” 1 The shift reveals much about the modern social construct of “childhood,” the requirements of translation and genre blending, and the reading horizons of audience. This essay tracks the change, using as pivotal texts Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy (1985), Amadou Kourouma’s Allah n’est pas obligé (2000) (Allah is not Obliged, 2006), China Keitetsi’s Child Soldier: Fighting for my Life (2002) and Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation (2005), arriving finally at Ishmael Beah’s sensational best-seller A Long Way Gone (2007).