We, the kindling / Otoniya J. Okot Bitek.
"A concise, searing novel centred around the unforgettable voices of schoolgirls in Uganda who survive capture by the Lord's Resistance Army. In northern Uganda in the 1990s, girls as young as eleven were abducted from schools and homes by the Lord's Resistance Army and thrust into the horrors of war. Facing long, perilous treks, gun battles, and underage marriages, while forced to be pawns in political machinations they did not understand, many did not survive. Those who did make it through continue to bear the physical and psychological weight of these terrors. As We, the Kindling begins, we meet Miriam and Helen, two survivors who are now in their twenties but haunted by their years in forced servitude to the Army. In spare, graceful, yet unflinching prose the novel weaves past with present, layering folk tales with taut realism to reveal the rhythm of the girls' lives before the war, unspooling the circumstances of their abductions and tracing their harrowing journeys home again. Reminiscent of The Buddha in the Attic, this is a luminous novel, full of life and care, that insistently refuses to spectacularize brutality and tragedy."-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781039009288 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: 210 pages ; 22 cm
- Publisher: Toronto, ON : Alchemy, by Knopf Canada, 2025.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Lord's Resistance Army > Fiction. Abduction > Fiction. Slavery > Africa > Fiction. Survival > Fiction. Young women > Fiction. Uganda > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Psychological fiction. Novels. |
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | FIC Okot | 31681010405215 | FICTION | Available | - |
- Random House, Inc.
One of CBC's Canadian Books to Read in 2025
As this spare and luminous novel begins, we meet Miriam, Helen and Maggieâthree friends who, years ago when they were school children, survived capture by the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda. Now, as the women go about their new lives in the city, shopping, caring for their children, planning and thinking about what the future might hold, we come to understand how deeply their past haunts the present.
  In graceful yet unflinching prose, Otoniya Okot Bitek weaves vivid folk tales with taut realism, revealing flashes of life before the war that ravaged Uganda, unspooling the terrible events that led to abductions of children from supposedly safe schools, and tracing perilous journeys home again. Facing endless treks across the ravaged countryside and through narrow mountain passes, gun battles and constant brutality, many girls did not survive. Those who did make it back home, some carrying small children of their own, bore the unspoken weight of their experiences within families and communities that often wished to forget and move on.
  In We, the Kindling, Okot Bitek insistently refuses to turn away or to spectacularize tragedy, shaping a chorus of women's voices into a hauntingly beautiful novel, suffused with care and humanity.