Book review: The Smallest Ones

The Smallest Ones

Popina Khumanda

Penguin Random House

Review: Lauren O’Connor-May

The Smallest Ones is a heartbreaking story of tragedy, abuse and triumph. This is a book that will make you weep.

Popina Khumanda tells the story of her violent youth, which begins when she is five years old and ends when she starts university. 

Popina’s simple and peaceful life in a rural farming village in the Democratic Republic of Congo is ripped apart when rebel militia invade. Popina and her best friend, Lola, first come across the rebels while playing alone in the forests surrounding the village. The following day, the broken girls meet their tormentors again when the men, who had been groomed as child soldiers raised on rape and violence, mete out the same treatment on the weaponless inhabitants of the quiet village.

Popina’s simple faith in a power she doesn’t understand, yet feels guiding and sustaining her, helps her and her sister escape into the jungle after years of captivity. Their goal is to reach South Africa, so they set out barefoot, using the sun as navigation. They survive starvation, exhaustion and exploitation while steadily heading southeast. Along the way, they get a few rides, but the currency sometimes demanded for the lifts is their bodies, so they make the journey mostly on foot.

A few people, including other refugees, treat them with kindness, but mostly they find that their world is full of men who are eager to prey on the vulnerability of the “smallest ones”.

Popina is now in her thirties and has a degree in IT, specialising in cybersecurity. She tells her story as an encouragement to “empower others through education”.