New review of my 4th novel, generally positive… “The first person is an excellent narrative choice which is difficult to pull off, but it is testimony to Joel Hirst’s ability that we want to know more about the supporting characters in the tragic story of Charles Agwok, Ugandan, African, anti-hero and would be reframer of his own brutal history. In achieving this, congratulations are due to Mr. Hirst.”
Book: I,Charles from the Camps
Author: Joel D. Hirst
Publisher: iUniverse(2018)
Page Count: 213
The eponymous Charles is Charles Agwok, the northern Ugandan
protagonist of Joel Hirst’s latest novel. He is of the Acholi ethnic
nationality. For those even mildly familiar with the recent geo-politics and
history of East Africa, these key words—Acholi, Ugandan—furnish a third, the
LRA. The LRA, which stands for the Lord’s Resistance Army, is a fundamentalist Christian
guerilla militia that has been fighting against the present Museveni regime
since the late 80’s. It is led by the elusive Joseph Kony and seeks a Uganda
governed by the Ten Commandments. Untold horrors, from rape to child soldiers
to the use of girls as sex slaves to terrorism, have been left in the wake of
its every entanglement with Ugandan forces.
The novel, told in the first person, is a peculiar…
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