142:, and his older brother Ali in their home in a remote village in southeastern Afghanistan. Despite their village's isolation among the mountains, the boys have a stable and loving home with their mother and father. The two boys are still quite young when their parents are killed in a raid. Newly orphaned, Aziz and Ali travel to Orgun, a city where they eke out a living at first by begging and later by working in a marketplace.
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Aziz departs for the border with the militia and quickly learns about the true nature of war. Through fighting with the
Special Lashkar, he develops relationships with people who represent the different directions in which Aziz feels himself pulled. Mr. Jack, an American adviser for the Special
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This
Pashtun ethical code is a key to understanding Aziz's ambivalence regarding his involvement in the war. The concepts of badal, meaning revenge, and nang, meaning honor, drive the actions of many of the Afghan characters in the novel. Due to his sense of badal, Aziz feels compelled to take
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Lashkar, is the only
American in the novel. Aziz views Mr. Jack with a certain amount of skepticism, and sees the American as an outsider. Aziz also meets the warlord Atal, and is drawn to the man's power as well as Atal's niece, a young woman Aziz comes to fall in love.
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As he rises in the ranks of the militia, Aziz's loyalties are tested by his desire for revenge and his need to protect those he cares for. His dilemma illuminates the complexity of war and the different reasons people take up arms and fight.
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revenge on the warlord responsible for the bombing that injured his brother, as this is the only way that he can restore nang. Aziz struggles to balance the demands of
Pashtunwali with a desire to break the cycle of vengeance.
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Political events in
Afghanistan shape Aziz's narrative in ways that he does not fully understand until later in the novel. At the same time that Ali is working in the market to pay for Aziz's education, the U.S. forces
228:, who read Ackerman's manuscript early on in the publication stages stated: " most impressive feat is the creation of a convincing and credible world through his full immersion in Afghan culture." In his review for
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praised this cultural understanding as well, writing: "Elliot
Ackerman has done something brave as a writer and even braver as a soldier: He has touched, for real, the culture and soul of his enemy."
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Many critics have praised
Ackerman's choice to write from the perspective of an Afghan narrator, challenging many American assumptions about the war in Afghanistan. In her article for
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fighting in the
Special Lashkar is a source of much-needed income. For others, fighting becomes a way to fulfill their own desire for revenge on an enemy. In an interview with
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Aziz's fictional experiences show how often individuals go to war for reasons other than fighting for a national cause. For Aziz and other Afghan characters in
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a "morally complex debut novel" for how
Ackerman explores the themes of loyalty to family and nation, revenge, and the brutality of war throughout the novel.
150:. Local militants and warlords strike back against the Americans, and a bomb explodes in the market in which Ali works, leaving him critically injured.
221:—and for the austere grace of its prose. But what sets the novel apart in the annals of American war literature is its daring shift in perspective".
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In addition to the narrative choice, Ackerman has been congratulated for inhabiting and portraying a foreign voice with accuracy and impartiality.
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for
Ackerman's "skilled, unadorned prose about men and women of action" as well as the book's insight into the "notions of honor and manhood."
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called the "Special Lashkar" because the wages from soldiering will allow Ali to stay in the hospital and receive the medical care he needs.
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highlights the complicated and diverse motives surrounding why people go to war and the often self-serving reasons why war continues.
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as "carrying the sting of authenticity and the sensory expression of experiences lived."
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445:"Back from the battlefield: Iraq, Afghanistan vets produce a surge of great fiction"
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In the hospital caring for his brother, Aziz encounters an Afghan wearing an
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in order to save his injured brother. Dr. Truman Anderson has called
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Novels set during the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
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Bissell also compared Ackerman's writing to that of
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189:The economy of war
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