Burma Boy

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, the unit has been given orders to go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. But the jungle is a treacherous place, riddled with Japanese snipers, ambush, infection and disease. As torrential rains turn the landscape into a mud-riven death trap, the losses mount up. Exhausted and far from home, the men of D-Section Thunder Brigade are besieged yet indomitable.

Taut and immediate, at once somber and exhilarating, Burma Boy is the first novel to depict the experiences of black African soldiers in the Second World War. This is a story of real-life battles, of the men who made the legend of the Chindits, the unconventional, quick strike division of the British Army in India. Horrific and always brilliantly executed, this vividly realized account details the madness, the sacrifice and the dark humor of that war’s most vicious battleground. It is also the moving story of a boy trying to live long enough to become a man.