Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

This book broke my heart and I was not expecting it.  I've read African literature in the past (e.g., Half a Yellow Sun, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Infidel, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall), but nothing prepared me for this book.

The five unrelated stories are all about children in Africa growing up under terribly sad circumstances.  For example, one is about children told they are going to be sent to their godparents, but actually being sold to traffickers in Gabon; one is about siblings watching their mixed Tutsi/Hutu family violently fall apart in Rwanda; one is about a family barely surviving in a shantytown in Kenya.  All of the stories are told from the children's point of view, but the magnitude of the situations ought to be squarely adult material.

One of the stories is just a few pages long, and two are 100+ pages.  The other two stories are of more of a traditional short-story length. 

I won't forget this book for a long time.