No Title
Malati Mukherji
WHEN BLACKBIRDS FLY by Hannah Lalhlanpuii Duckbill, Not Our War Series, 2022, 128 pp., 199.00
November 2022, volume 46, No 11

I cannot understand what they are fighting for–the MNF rebels. I am perfectly fine with the way things are; I cannot imagine what more freedom I need. Sometimes, I feel that people ask for too much.’

When Blackbirds Fly starts off as a simple story seen through a child’s eyes. A nameless little boy who already has everything he wants in life and is content to chase spent shells with his best friend, walks back from school with the best girl in the world and listens to his grandfather’s stories as he sits smoking his pipe by the window at night.

Hannah Lalhlanpuii’s book is a part of the Not Our War series; books that deal with children growing up in a war zone. Growing up hapless victims of an adults’ war they did not create and have no need for but from which they have no escape. The child keeps asking why things cannot remain the way they are.

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