Stephen Ryan, a promising mathematician from a working-class Dublin family, joins the army when war breaks out in 1914. Monaghan's debut is less sentimental than its title suggests. The Soldier's Song, by Alan Monaghan (Pan Macmillan, £11.99) His sufferings are too relentless and dehumanising to be called mere hardship – this is a significant, affecting book of the dispossessed. However, Mussolini's forces are making inroads into Abyssinia, and for the next 10 years Jama's journey will take him across a ravaged landscape.

His nomadic father abandoned the child and his mother, who dies in squalor but Jama, cheeky and resourceful, scavenges, steals and works where and how he can, along with friends Shidane and Abdi. Mixing startling lyricism and sheer brutality, she plunges into the chattering, viscous heat and 'hyena darkness' of Aden, 1935, in her portrayal of Jama, a young street boy. Mohamed has turned her researches into the life of her father – a Somali who ended up in postwar Hull – into a compelling account of the refugee experience. Black Mamba Boy, by Nadifa Mohamed (HarperCollins, £12.99)

Black mamba boy song