THOMAS BIYI BANDELE

Cuando encuentra a su hermano pequeño paseando desnudo por el mercado, un narrador sin nombre empieza a evocar la vida de Rayo, una vida llena de interrogantes y de absurdidades. Deliberadamente impetuoso y con la iniciativa propia de la juventud, Rayo desafía al corrupto sistema político que controla las vidas de sus compatriotas, empezando con un grotesco enfrentamiento escolar y acabando con un choque frontal con los representantes más importantes del poder político de su país.Haciendo gala de un fino sentido del humor y de una imaginación desbordante, Biyi Bandele nos ofrece una sátira feroz y al mismo tiempo una fantasía poética sobre la injusticia, el totalitarismo y la violencia institucionalizada firmemente arraigadas en su Nigeria natal.

It's winter 1944 and the Second World War is entering its most crucial stage. A few months ago Ali Banana was apprenticed to a whip-wielding blacksmith in his rural hometown; now he's behind enemy lines, trekking through the Burmese jungle, a private in Thunder Brigade. He is fourteen years old. Led by the scarred, charismatic Sergeant Damisa, Thunder Brigade has been given orders to go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. But the jungle is a treacherous place, riddled with Japanese snipers, infection and disease. As torrential rains turn the landscape into a mud-riven death trap, the losses mount up, Ali's sanity falters and troubling questions arise. Who, for instance, is 'Kingi Jogi'? What does his empire stand for? And what does it all mean for Banana, the men of Thunder Brigade and for their inspirational general? IBurma Boy/I is a story of the adventure of war and the terrible consequences of that adventure. Biyi Bandele's novel is a meticulously researched, elegantly written tribute to the Africans who fought in the Second World War â€" detailing the madness, the horror, the sacrifice and the dark humour of its most vicious battleground.