Synopses & Reviews
My new friends have begun to suspect I havent told them the full story of my life.“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.”
“Yes, sometime.”
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, hed been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York and then graduated from Oberlin College in 2004. He is a member of Human Rights Watch Children's Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO) at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and many other NGO panels on children affected by war. He has also spoken before the United Nations on several occasions. His work has appeared in VespertinePress and LIT magazine. He lives in New York City. A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Time Magazine Best Book of the YearA Newsweek Favorite Book of the YearA Quill Book Award FinalistA Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the YearA YALSA Best Book for Young AdultsWinner of the Alex Award My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life."Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"
"Because there is a war.""You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?""Yes, all the time.""Cool."I smile a little."You should tell us about it sometime.""Yes, sometime." This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become the soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he had been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and finally, to heal. Also available on CD as an unabridged audiobook, read by the author. Please email [email protected] for more information. "What is it about African wars that is so disturbing? Why do they unsettle us so? . . . The great benefit of Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, is that it may help us arrive at an understanding of this situation. Beah's autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determineperhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the pubescent (or even prepubescent) warrior-killer . . . A Long Way Gone is his first, remarkable book . . . Beah's memoir joins an elite class of writing: Africans witnessing African wars . . . A Long Way Gone makes you wonder how anyone comes through such unrelenting ghastliness and horror with his humanity and sanity intact. Unusually, the smiling, open face of the author on the book jacket provides welcome and timely reassurance. Ishmael Beah seems to prove it can happen."William Boyd, The New York Times Book Review "What is it about African wars that is so disturbing? Why do they unsettle us so? . . . The great benefit of Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, is that it may help us arrive at an understanding of this situation. Beah's autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determineperhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the pubescent (or even prepubescent) warrior-killer . . . A Long Way Gone is his first, remarkable book . . . Beah's memoir joins an elite class of writing: Africans witnessing African wars . . . A Long Way Gone makes you wonder how anyone comes through such unrelenting ghastliness and horror with his humanity and sanity intact. Unusually, the smiling, open face of the author on the book jacket provides welcome and timely reassurance. Ishmael Beah seems to prove it can happen."William Boyd, The New York Times Book Review "Everyone in the world should read this book. Not just because it contains an amazing story, or because it's our moral, bleeding-heart duty, or because it's clearly written. We should read it to learn about the world and about what it means to be human . . . I don't think it's possible to 'understand' this book. A Long Way Gone says something about human nature that we try, most of the time, to ignore. Humans can be murderous, and that doesn't pertain in any way to religion or politics or ideology. These boys, on either side, didn't have the foggiest idea of the reasons for their war. The proselytizers, colonists, foreign entrepreneurs, politicians, even cheesy moviemakers all played a part in itcommitting murder by proxy. The murder itself is ubiquitous. The faint good news in these pages is that if we're lucky, very lucky, we may be able to sneak out of this life without being either murderer or victim. But it's nothing to count on."Carolyn See, The Washington Post Book World&n
Review
"A breathtaking and unself-pitying account of how a gentle spirit survives a childhood from which all the innocence has suddenly been sucked out....The clear-eyed tale of a child determinedly pursuing his own humanity against all odds." Belinda Luscombe, Time
Review
"Extraordinary... A ferocious and desolate account of how ordinary children were turned into professional killers." The Guardian (UK)
Review
"A Long Way Gone is one of the most important war stories of our generation. The arming of children is among the greatest evils of the modern world, and yet we know so little about it because the children themselves are swallowed up by the very wars they are forced to wage. Ishmael Beah has not only emerged intact from this chaos, he has become one of its most eloquent chroniclers. We ignore his message at our peril." Sebastian Junger, author of A Death in Belmont and A Perfect Storm
Review
"This is a beautifully written book about a shocking war and the children who were forced to fight it. Ishmael Beah describes the unthinkable in calm, unforgettable language; his memoir is an important testament to the children elsewhere who continue to be conscripted into armies and militias." Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Review
"This is a wrenching, beautiful, and mesmerizing tale. Beah's amazing saga provides a haunting lesson about how gentle folks can be capable of great brutalities as well goodness and courage. It will leave you breathless." Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Review
"Beah's is a story of loss and redemption from orphan to fighter to international participant in human-rights conferences on child soldiers." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Those seeking to understand the human consequences of war, its brutal and brutalizing costs, would be wise to reflect on Ishmael Beah's story." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Beah writes to recount, not to relive the ghastly memories, or to shock or guilt-trip his readers. His language is simple and his tone somewhat detached, as though to delimit the frightening reach of that world." Christian Science Monitor
Review
"Whatever excuses and defenses and rationalizations we offer for war, whenever we say that war is any sort of rational act, Beah's voice is now forever raised to call war what it is: madness." Oregonain
Review
"With a clear eye and a steady cadence, [Beah] recounts how civil war punctured his rural boyhood and mutated him into a 13-year-old killer." Cleveland Plain Dealer
Synopsis
In a heart-wrenching, candid autobiography, a human rights activist offers a firsthand account of war from the perspective of a former child soldier, detailing the violent civil war that wracked his native Sierra Leone and the government forces that transformed a gentle young boy into a killer as a member of the army. 75,000 first printing.
Synopsis
In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.
Why did you leave Sierra Leone?
Because there is a war.
You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?
Yes, all the time.
Cool.
I smile a little.
You should tell us about it sometime.
Yes, sometime.
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Synopsis
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.
"Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"
"Because there is a war."
"You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?"
"Yes, all the time."
"Cool."
I smile a little.
"You should tell us about it sometime."
"Yes, sometime."
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Synopsis
In the more than 50 conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. In a rare and mesmerizing account, Beah tells of his experience as a child fighting a war in Sierra Leone.
Synopsis
My new friends have begun to suspect I havent told them the full story of my life.“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.”
“Yes, sometime.”
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, hed been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York and then graduated from Oberlin College in 2004. He is a member of Human Rights Watch Children's Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO) at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and many other NGO panels on children affected by war. He has also spoken before the United Nations on several occasions. His work has appeared in VespertinePress and LIT magazine. He lives in New York City. A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Time Magazine Best Book of the YearA Newsweek Favorite Book of the YearA Quill Book Award FinalistA Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the YearA YALSA Best Book for Young AdultsWinner of the Alex Award My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life."Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"
"Because there is a war.""You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?""Yes, all the time.""Cool."I smile a little."You should tell us about it sometime.""Yes, sometime." This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become the soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he had been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and finally, to heal. Also available on CD as an unabridged audiobook, read by the author. Please email [email protected] for more information. "What is it about African wars that is so disturbing? Why do they unsettle us so? . . . The great benefit of Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, is that it may help us arrive at an understanding of this situation. Beah's autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determineperhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the pubescent (or even prepubescent) warrior-killer . . . A Long Way Gone is his first, remarkable book . . . Beah's memoir joins an elite class of writing: Africans witnessing African wars . . . A Long Way Gone makes you wonder how anyone comes through such unrelenting ghastliness and horror with his humanity and sanity intact. Unusually, the smiling, open face of the author on the book jacket provides welcome and timely reassurance. Ishmael Beah seems to prove it can happen."William Boyd, The New York Times Book Review "What is it about African wars that is so disturbing? Why do they unsettle us so? . . . The great benefit of Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, is that it may help us arrive at an understanding of this situation. Beah's autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determineperhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the pubescent (or even prepubescent) warrior-killer . . . A Long Way Gone is his first, remarkable book . . . Beah's memoir joins an elite class of writing: Africans witnessing African wars . . . A Long Way Gone makes you wonder how anyone comes through such unrelenting ghastliness and horror with his humanity and sanity intact. Unusually, the smiling, open face of the author on the book jacket provides welcome and timely reassurance. Ishmael Beah seems to prove it can happen."William Boyd, The New York Times Book Review "Everyone in the world should read this book. Not just because it contains an amazing story, or because it's our moral, bleeding-heart duty, or because it's clearly written. We should read it to learn about the world and about what it means to be human . . . I don't think it's possible to 'understand' this book. A Long Way Gone says something about human nature that we try, most of the time, to ignore. Humans can be murderous, and that doesn't pertain in any way to religion or politics or ideology. These boys, on either side, didn't have the foggiest idea of the reasons for their war. The proselytizers, colonists, foreign entrepreneurs, politicians, even cheesy moviemakers all played a part in itcommitting murder by proxy. The murder itself is ubiquitous. The faint good news in these pages is that if we're lucky, very lucky, we may be able to sneak out of this life without being either murderer or victim. But it's nothing to count on."Carolyn See, The Washington Post Book World&n
Synopsis
Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and became a child soldier.
Synopsis
This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers.
Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story in his own words: how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Synopsis
Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and became a child soldier.
Synopsis
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life."Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"
"Because there is a war."
"You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?"
"Yes, all the time."
"Cool."
I smile a little.
"You should tell us about it sometime."
"Yes, sometime."
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Synopsis
Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and became a child soldier.
About the Author
Ishmael Beah was born in 1980 in Sierra Leone, West Africa. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vespertine Press, LIT, Parabola, and numerous academic journals. He is a UNICEF Ambassador and Advocate for Children Affected by War; a member of the Human Rights Watch Childrens Rights Advisory Committee; an advisory board member at the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Violence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; visiting scholar at the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University; visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights at Rutgers University; cofounder of the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW); and president of the Ishmael Beah Foundation. He has spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and many panels on the effects of war on children. His book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier has been published in over thirty languages and was nominated for a Quill Award in 2007. Time magazine named the book as one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2007, ranking it at number three. Ishmael Beah is a graduate of Oberlin College with a B.A. in Political Science and resides in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently completing a novel set in his home country of Sierra Leone.
Reading Group Guide
1. How familiar were you with the civil wars of Sierra Leone prior to reading
A Long Way Gone? How has Ishmael's story changed your perception of this history,
and of current wars in general?
2. Chapter seven begins with the story of the imam's death, followed by Ishmael's
recollections of his father and an elder blessing their home when they first moved to
Mogbwemo. How do the concepts of faith and hope shift throughout this memoir?
What sustains Ishmael emotionally and spiritually?
3. Chapter eight closes with the image of villagers running fearfully from Ishmael
and his friends, believing that the seven boys are rebels. How do they overcome
these negative assumptions in communities that have begun to associate the boys'
appearance with evil? What lessons could world leaders learn from them about
overcoming distrust, and the importance of judging others individually rather than
as stereotypes?
4. What did Ishmael's parents teach him about being a man? How did he define
manhood once he began his long walk west? What general life lessons were his parents
able to teach him that sustained him during his brutal passage from boyhood,
and that he carries with him to this day?
5. Discuss the role of American hip-hop culture in creating a "soundtrack" for
Ishmael's life. Why are rappers so appealing to him?
6. The boys' discovery of the Atlantic Ocean and their encounter with a cheerful
fisherman who heals and feeds them is followed by the tragedy of Saidu's death
after a bird falls ominously from the sky. Discuss Ishmael's relationship with the
natural world. In what way is he guided by the constancy of the earth and sky?
7. When Ishmael arrives at the fortified village of Yele in chapter twelve, what do
you discover about the way he began his military career? Was his service, and that
of his equally young friends, necessary? What made his conscription different from
that of drafted American soldiers serving in previous wars?
8. Ishmael tells us that some of the boys who had been rehabilitated with him later
became soldiers again. What factors ensured that he could remain a civilian?
9. Storytelling is a powerful force in Ishmael's life, even providing a connection to
his future mother, Laura Simms. What traits make Ishmael a memorable and
unique storyteller? How does his perspective compare to the perspectives of
filmmakers, reporters, or other authors who have recently tried to portray Africa's
civil wars?
10. Ishmael describes his use of Krio and many tribal languages to communicate, as
well as his ability to quote Shakespeare's Elizabethan English. What communities
and empires are represented in his many speech styles? In which "villages," from
the relatively new UN to the centuries-old Mende and Temne settlements, does the
greatest wisdom lie?
11. How does Ishmael's concept of family change throughout the memoir, from his
early life in Mattru Jong, to the uncle with whom he is reunited, to his American
family with Laura?
12. It takes many weeks before Ishmael feels comfortable with the relief workers'
refrain that these events are not his fault. What destructive beliefs had he become
addicted to? What states of deprivation and euphoria had his body become addicted
to?
13. What universal truths does Ishmael teach us about surviving loss and hunger,
and overcoming isolation?
14. Ishmael's dramatic escape during the later waves of revolution concludes with
the riddle of the monkey. Is his dream of obliterating the monkey and its violent
endgames closer to being fulfilled in these early years of the twenty-first century?
What would it take for all of humanity to adopt Ishmael's rejection of vengeance?
15. Ishmael gives credit to relief workers such as Esther, in conjunction with organizations
such as UNICEF, for rescuing him. He has dedicated his life to their
cause, studying political science and speaking before a broad variety of groups,
ranging from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Center for Emerging Threats
and Opportunities at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. What steps has he
inspired you to take to help end the use of child soldiers? How can each of us join
Ishmael's cause?
16. After reading the chronology of Sierra Leone's history, what reasons can you
propose for the coups in Ishmael's homeland? Did the arrival of Portuguese slave
traders, or the later colonization by the British, contribute to Sierra Leone's twentiethcentury
woes? What did you discover about the motivations of the army soldiers
versus those of the rebels? In your opinion, what made the leaders of the RUF so
ruthless for so long?