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From lived spaces to literary spaces: the figure of the child soldier in contemporary African literature

Abstract This article examines how fictional representations of civil conflict and its consequences enable contemporary African writers to capture the raft of ways in which war remains a troubling agent within the national body. This is especially relevant in the context of postcolonial societies living the traumatic aftermath of decolonization and liberation wars. Focusing on the figure of the ‘child soldier’ as an emblem of the experience of displacement as engendered by Civil war in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half a Yellow Sun (2006) and Chris Abani’s Song for Night (2007), I argue that the figure of a child soldier qua displaced individual brings into relief a polemic and politically explosive commentary on the state of nationalism, statehood and citizenship in postcolonial, post-independence Africa.