Drone Child: A Novel of War, Family, and Survival

Set in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2050, a former child soldier reflects on his nightmarish time as a conscript in the Congolese Purification Army. Rothman (The Solomon Scandals) highlights the horrors of warfare in this all-too-timely tale. To escape brutal revolutionary soldiers known as the “Purifiers,” 15-year-old Lemba Adula and his twin sister, Josiane, flee their home for the capital city, Kinshasha. While they find work at an Internet café—Lemba providing tech assistance, and Josiane singing—their safety is short-lived, as Lemba’s skills attract the attention of the Purifiers, and he is soon forced to join their ranks. With a sorrowful voice, narrator Dion Graham describes how Lemba is blackmailed into assisting the Purifiers and their twisted leader, Demon Killer, into piloting bomb-carrying drones and killing civilians from afar. Graham skillfully captures the cadence of Lemba’s speech, intense but also tinged with regret. With cinematic precision, Graham depicts the larger-than-life characters that Lemba encounters, from unhinged Demon Killer to the sleazy internet-café proprietor.