epitone“I read, and liked, Nick Taussig’s first novel, Love and Mayhem, but somehow missed Don Don, so I’m glad I came across his third book, Gorilla Guerilla, a book I really enjoyed from cover to cover.
Told from the twin perspectives of a 12 year old African boy mercenary (Kibwe) and a 12 year old silverback gorilla (Zuberi), Gorilla Guerilla is a fascinating and captivating insight into two opposing, yet so similar, lifestyles within an (unnamed) African country.
Both characters provide an innocent, yet philosophical view of their situations and surroundings as they face hazards that raise questions about our own human desires of power and struggle and how these affect our environment and other creatures that co-inhabit our world. Yet somehow the book manages to keep these weighty issues fairly light, and although brushes on very dark elements and probing questions of humanity, it has an air of optimism, an air of hope.
Gorilla Guerilla is the sort of book that should be required reading for all twelve year olds and above, whether from the UK or Africa, or indeed anywhere else in the world. Right, I’m now off to find Don Don.” M. Hewitt