Angela Pinkney’s The Red Pencil: The Child's Voice in A Genocide

Abstract

The topic of this article will focus on the child’s immigrant voice during the Darfur genocide which took place in west Sudan in 2003. The genocide happened as a result of government funded militia murdering Darfurians due to differences in race, leaving 480,00 civilians killed and 2.8 million displaced. Despite continuous political unrest, little mainstream media has brought attention to this issue among masses with a lack of acknowledgment to their trauma, leaving their voices unheard. To fit the theme of peripheral voices I feel this topic is appropriate and have chosen to focus my article on Andrea Davis Pinkney’s The Red Pencil[1]. Her novel uncovers young girl Amira’s experience of the genocide. Amira’s experience represents many of what the children of Sudan were confronted with and I will examine how Pinkney’s novel brings the hidden voice of the children to the forefront.

[1] Andrea Davis Pinkney, The Red Pencil ([n.p.]: Little, Brown Young Readers US, 2014).