New in paperback. First English translation. Birahima is a ten-year-old soldier. When Birahima's mother dies, he leaves his native village, accompanied by the sorcerer Yacouba, to search for his aunt, Mahan. Crossing the border into Liberia, they are seized by a rebel force and press-ganged into military service. Birahima is given a Kalashnikov, scant rations of food, and plenty of dope. Fighting in a totally chaotic civil war, and alongside many other child soldiers, he sees death, torture, amputation and madness, but somehow manages to retain his own sanity. Told in the remarkably realised voice of a ten-year-old boy, Birahima's story is tinged with both humour and disdain. As Birahima takes us through the bloody battlefields of horrific warfare, he makes no attempt to explain the inexplicable. Translated by Frank Wynne. 215pp, UK. VINTAGE UK.

A volume of harrowing photography which chronicles the lives of children and young people during and after war. Each country is introduced with a brief summary of the history and background to the conflicts. Introduced by Amara Essy, the Secretary General of the OAU. B/w photography, map, 162pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNISA PRESS, 1868882306

Now in paperback. Acclaimed debut fiction by a 23-year-old Harvard graduate, whose mother is currently the Nigerian finance minister. Drawing on his work with refugees and the memories of family members who fought in the Nigerian civil war, he has crafted a first-person account as told by nine-year-old Agu. Kidnapped by rebel forces after his mother had fled and his school-teacher father is shot in front of him, Agu soon becomes a rapist and murderer himself. 180pp, UK. JOHN MURRAY.

A collection of essays showing that boys and girls have routinely contributed to home front war efforts, armies have accepted under aged soldiers for centuries, and war time experiences have always affected the ways in which grown up children of war perceive themselves and their societies. The authors look at a range of issues including the American Revolution, the writings of free black children during the American Civil War, children's home front war efforts during the Second World War, representations of war and defeat in Japanese children's magazines, and growing up in war torn Liberia. BNS, 313pp, USA. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS.

New UK Edition. The true life story of a young Ugandan girl who runs away from her oppressive and abusive home and is drafted into Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army and is soon in the thick of a guerrilla war. Maps, b/w illus, 274pp, SOUTH AFRICA, JACANA

A reference book with information by country on the contexts, recruitment policies and recent developments in the use of children as combatants. It covers the period from April 2001 to March 2004. Includes a useful global data summary chart. 360pp, UK. COALITION TO STOP THE USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS.

New in paperback. Brings first-hand experience with children in Angola and Mozambique to bear on how children are recruited, what they encounter and how they come to terms with their actions, particularly in their attempts to rebuild their lives within local communities. Examines wider institutional efforts to support these wartime casualties. Index, notes, 202pp, USA. UNIVERSITY PRESS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

A bibliography introducing the most important texts from war studies, family, child and gender studies which pertain to the subjects of children in situations of war and urban violence. TEXT IN FRENCH. 63pp, SENEGAL. CODESRIA.

New in paperback. Just 13 in 1987 when he was driven from his village and separated from his family in the raging civil war in southern Sudan, John Bul Dau spent years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, until in 2001 he came to the U.S. as one of 4,000 Lost Boys of Sudan. His memoir is the subject of a new, award-winning documentary film. A stark, first-person account of trauma and survival. Dau tells it quietly, in fast, simple prose true to the young teen's viewpoint. He's funny about the culture shock in America and honest about his years in the camp, even the fact that, trauma notwithstanding, he liked being tabbed as a leader. Although appreciative of this country and the chance for work and college, he never denies his connections to the Sudan. 304pp, USA. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.

Comprehensive assessment of war-affected children that looks at child soldiers, internally displaced and refugee children, child victims of landmines and sanctions, and the physical and psycho-social consequences of conflict on the very young. 20 b/w photos, xv, 230pp, UK. HURST.

African children and youth have been absorbed into liberation struggles and insurgencies, yet explanations for the presence of young people in battlefields have tended to be simplistic and overlook the political significance of this phenomenon. Children are often represented as victims and forced to fight under the influence of drugs and brainwashing: a collective of irrational killing machines that is unaware of the moral consequences of its actions. Alternately, they are glorified as the vanguards of African liberation struggles against colonial oppression. This book tries in a series of essays on Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia to promote a better understanding of armed conflict in Africa by introducing the invisible stakeholders: children and youth. Notes, 136pp, SOUTH AFRICA. INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES.

New paperback edition. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. Now twenty-five years old, he tells his riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and honesty. Includes extended afterword and an interview with the author. Chronology, 248pp, UK. HARPER PERENNIAL.

In Africa youth are portrayed as perpetrators and victims in civil conflict, leaders and led in political and religious movements, innovators and dupes in globalized culture. This collection navigates through stereotypes of 'victim' and 'perpetrator', taking on themes of youth agency and the constructed nature of youth as a social category. CONTENTS: Introduction: Children & youth in Africa by Filip de Boeck & Alcinda Honwana I CHILDREN & YOUTH IN A GLOBAL ERA Reflections on youth, from the past to the postcolony by Jean & John Comaroff II THE PAIN OF AGENCY, THE AGENCY OF PAIN Child-soldiers as interstitial & tactical agents by Alcinda Honwana - Young women in the Liberian civil war by Mats Utas - Conceptions of pain & children's expressions of it in Southern Africa by Pamela Reynolds - Consciousness, affliction & alterity in urban East Africa by Brad Weiss III CHILDREN, YOUTH & MARGINALITY: IN & OUT OF PLACE The forbidden masquerades of Oku youth & women by Nicolas Argenti - Song, choirs & youth in Botswana by Deborah Durham IV PAST THE POSTCOLONY? Youth culture & violence in Sierra Leone by Ibrahim Abdullah - Children & witchcraft in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Filip de Boeck - Youth & street culture in urban Africa: Addis Ababa, Dakar & Kinshasha by Tshikala Biaya - Afterword by Mamadou Diouf. Index, 244pp, UK. JAMES CURREY PUBLISHERS..

New smaller format paperback edition. Set in Sierra Leone this first novel recounts the story of Julia, returning to Sierra Leone from London to support her uncle on a death in the family. In pursuing answers to the terrible circumstances of her aunt's death, she confronts the horrific reality of life for child soldiers and difficulties of reintegration into society. Winner of the 2005 Orwell Prize for political writing. 240pp, UK. GRANTA .

Charity recording towards the demobilization of child combatants. Includes tracks by Alpha Blondy, Angelique Kidjo, Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour. FRANCE. O+ MUSIC.

Brings diverse disciplinary perspectives to bear on various forms of violence that have plagued recent African history. Exploring violence as part of political economy and rejecting stereotypical explanations of African violence as endemic or natural to African cultures, the essays examine a continent where the boundaries on acceptable force are always shifting and the distinction between violence by the state and against the state is not always clear. Many of the essays address generational tensions through the role of African youth, which in this context is almost exclusively male. The violence perpetrated by young men stems not only from ideologies of masculinity but also from a frustration over both their own unrealised adulthood and the failure of an adult leadership whose interaction with the youth often seems limited to enlisting them in more bloodshed. 268pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PRESS.

This book contains a range of original studies on one of the major challenges in Africa today: the controversial role of youth in politics, conflict and rebellious movements. The issue is not only the drafting of child soldiers into insurgent armies or predatory militias, as in Somalia, Sierra Leone or Congo, but, more generally, that of the problematic insertion of large numbers of young people in the socio-economic and political order of post-colonial Africa. Even educated youths are being confronted with a lack of opportunities, blocked social mobility, and despair about the future. Many of the political antagonisms and conflicts in which youths are involved do not only exist at the discursive level but are being produced by current demographic and socio-political contradictions in Africa. BNS, 302pp, NETHERLANDS. E J BRILL.

An exploration of the reasons that adolescents who are neither physically forced nor abducted choose to join armed groups. Using in depth interviews with the soldiers themselves, the authors challenge conventional wisdom to offer a thought provoking account of the way war, poverty, education, politics, identity, family and friends all play in driving young people to military life. Case studies are taken from Afghanistan, Colombia, Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Ireland. Index, bib, notes, app, b/w illus, 192pp, UK. LYNNE RIENNER.