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A heartbreaking story of a young Afghan boy coming of age in a country at war. From an author who served 5 tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
About the author
Elliot Ackerman
served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He is a former White House Fellow whose essays and fiction have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New Republic and the New York Times. He currently lives in Istanbul, where he writes on the Syrian Civil War.
Summary
Aziz and his older brother Ali live in a village amid the pine forests and endless mountains of eastern Afghanistan. There is no school, but their mother teaches them to read and write, and once a month sends the boys on a two-day journey to the bazaar. They are poor, but inside their mud-walled home, the family has stability, love, and routine.
When a convoy of armed men arrives in the village one day, their parents disappear and their world is shattered. In order to survive Aziz must join the Special Lashkar, a US-funded militia always hungry for Afghan recruits. No longer a boy, but not yet a man, he departs for the untamed border. Trapped in a conflict both savage and entirely contrived, Aziz struggles to understand his place. Will he embrace the brutality of war or leave it behind, and risk placing his brother - and a young woman he comes to love - in jeopardy?
Elliot Ackerman served five tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has written a gripping, morally complex debut novel, an astonishing feat of empathy and imagination about boys caught in a deadly conflict.
Foreword
The thrilling, heartbreaking story of a young
Afghan boy coming of age in a country at war.
