There's a repulsive quality to Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah Is Not Obliged that's immediately apparent when you begin this novel especially because of the narrator's choice of words. Birahima is a foul-mouthed child soldier who's somewhere between the ages of ten and twelve. He was born in Togobola, a village in Beyla, Guinea, a country on the western coast of Africa. After the death of his mother,