Delia Jarrett-Macauley – Moses, Citizen & Me
230 pages,
Granta
The first novel to win the Orwell Prize.
When Julia flies in to war-scarred Sierra Leone from London, she is apprehensive about seeing her uncle Moses for the first time in twenty years. But nothing could have prepared her for her encounter with her eight-year-old cousin, Citizen, a former child soldier, and for the shocking truth of what he has done.
Driven by a desire to understand Citizen, Julia takes the disturbed child into the rainforest, where to her surprise, she encounters him amongst other child soldiers, along with a mysterious storyteller, Bemba G. Is he a shaman, teacher, wizard or magician? He alone in the heart of the rainforest can heal the rift between the cultures of war and peace, Europe and Africa. But who would think he'd use Shakespeare to do it?
Moses, Citizen & Me is a work of imagination about the conflict in Sierra Leone; a novel which draws on both the European canon and African oral traditions to illuminate the sufferings of child soldiers and their families. Delia Jarrett-Macauley is an exciting discovery; a debut novelist who has already found a confident and compelling voice, who handles her devastating material with great delicacy and empathy.
A deeply affecting and vividly told story of ordinary people with the courage to survive. Delia Jarrett-Macauley has excavated the pain and torment within the hidden recesses of the human soul and there uncovered, finally - love
Aminatta Forna
It's a tough subject and the author handles it superbly. Peopled with memorable characters, this is an unforgettable, deeply moving novel
Choice magazine, Book of the Month
The considered and multi-layered story of a Sierra Leone family... A novel remarkable for its slowed, measured pulse and its calm analysis, its keenness to promise hope and rehabilitation even after the worst
The Guardian