Literature on child soldiers in West Africa’s civil (and resource) wars have grown into a genre of its own.
In the United States the most notable exponents of this genre is perhaps Ismael Beah (A Long Way Gone: Memoir of a Boy Soldier backed by Starbucks and from which an excerpt was published in the New York Times magazine) and Uzodinma Iweala (who authored the novel Beasts of No Nation: in its review the New York Times had to make the obligatory Conrad reference).
More recently even novelist Chris Abani tried his hand at the genre.
(Incidentally I just finished the late Ahmadou Kourouma‘s Allah Is Not Obliged about the same subject. First published in French in 2000, and translated into English in 2005 it is a more compelling read than all the above combined.)
Now comes the film, Ezra, by director Newton Aduaka. As for mainstream reviews and the advance word about the film, see here here, here and here).
As for when exactly we can see it in the US: It will only make its debut in the United States cinema in February next year. February 13-26 at the Film Forum (where a Ousmane Sembene retrospective ends tonight) to be exact.
Full details here.
