SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 GILLER PRIZE

“The Small Ones is a masterfully written, harrowing novel about the child martyrs used as front-line shields in the Iran-Iraq War—'us warrior children, us children of God,’ as our narrator tells us. A wondrous literary novel about a dark moment in history.”
—John Irving

"Transforms the experiences of children caught in conflict into a deeply affecting examination of sacrifice, power, survival, and the enduring humanity of those whom society deems expendable." —The 2026 Giller Prize Jury

In The Small Ones, Nazanine Hozar crafts a gripping fable about children who are caught up in a military insurgence along the Iran–Iraq border in the early 1980s (based on the real-life conflict of that time) and forced to become soldiers and martyrs. This ragtag group of boys and one small girl create a little family of their own even as they yearn to return to their lost homes and safety.
    The Small Ones is at heart about fathers and sons—unreliable father figures in the repressive Iran of Hozar’s telling whose personal quests for power lead to pain and bloodshed. It is also a tale about what it takes to not only survive but end such wars. The story centres on narrator Amir and his best friend Clay, who appears to be both a human boy and a creature of myth. With them, we embark on a full-circle journey, following the ancient river Karun along the borderland until freedom is in reach, but at a terrible cost.
    An extraordinary novel that takes us unflinchingly into a storm of deadly conflict through the eyes of its youngest participants, The Small Ones is a searing look at cycles of coercion, bloodshed and war, and the cost of escaping them for the hope of a better life.