Johnny Mad Dog
Books | Fiction / World Literature / Africa / General
Emmanuel Dongala
Life During Wartime, As Seen Through the Eyes of Two Congolese Teenagers Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, Emmanuel Dongala's striking novel tells the story of two teenagers growing up while rival ethnic groups fight for control of their country.At age sixteen, Johnny is a member of the Death Dealers, a rebel faction bent on seizing power. Even as he is drawn into the rebels' program of terror, Johnny Mad Dog, as he calls himself, retains his youthful exuberance--searching for girls, good times, and adventure. Sixteen-year-old Laokolé, for her part, dreams of finishing high school and becoming an engineer, but as rogue militias prepare to sack the city, she is forced to leave home with her mother and brother--and then finds herself alone and running from the likes of Johnny.Acclaimed in France, Johnny Mad Dog is a coming-of-age story like no other; Dongala's masterful use of dual narrators makes the novel an unusually vivid and affecting tale of the struggle to survive--and to retain one's humanity--in terrifying times.
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Author
Emmanuel Dongala
Pages
334
Publisher
Macmillan + ORM
Published Date
2007-05-15
ISBN
0374708037 9780374708030
Community ReviewsSee all
"It's a good book. It follows two course, one of people fleeing, the other militia. The tone is necessarily relentless. Arguably, this is a good examination of the experiences of African wars, the use of child soldiers in particular. However, I found Johnny's story, who is the child soldier whose masculinity is manipulated, to be on the nose, whereas the trials of the young girl trying to protect her brother were more interesting. I read the book in French, so that may have affected my opinion."
Nathanael Robinson