A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Encyclopedia
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah
. Published in 2007, this book provides a firsthand account of the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts worldwide. Ishmael Beah was forced to run away from attacking rebels in Sierra Leone at the young age of 12. He was then forever separated from his direct family. He wandered his war-filled country and was then forced to join an army unit where they brainwashed him into believing in only large guns and blood. By thirteen, he had experienced incidents that others may not have to deal with throughout their entire lives. At the age of 16 however, he was removed from the unit by the UNICEF and was given a chance to be forgiven and to be loved once more. With the help of some of the staff he was able to forgive himself for everything he had done and to finally move on. He was then given a chance to teach others about the hell he was forced to be put through called war. He traveled the United States teaching people about the devastating and unforgettable things that he was forced to encounter and the things that millions of kids all over the world still have to encounter today.
, or RUF. After being rescued by UNICEF and rehabilitated, he went to live with his Uncle Tommy. While there, he was recruited to travel to the United States to speak at a United Nations event about child soldiers. Returning to Freetown after his speaking event, he eventually made his way back to the United States. As a result of time, he was able to forgive himself and love once again.
Esther: Esther is a nurse at the shelter that Ishmael develops a friendship with. Ishmael tells parts of his war stories and dreams to Esther. She is the only person he trusts 100%. He is absolutely in love with her, and he believes she cares for him as well. Esther gives Ishmael a walkman with a Bob Marley cassette. This is one of his most prized possessions. Esther does regular check-ups on the mental health of Ishmael during his time being rehabilitated at Benin Home.
Mambu: Mambu, child soldier who was with the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. Mambu and Ishmael meet at the shelter for the first time. They become close friends. He later goes back to the front lines after his family rejects taking him in. He was not as lucky as Ishmael, and as far as the reader knows, he never got a second chance to be forgiven and to be loved.
Alhaji: Alhaji is one of Ishmael’s closest friends. Ishmael knew Alhaji from his times in the army. Alhaji was eventually rescued by UNICEF and put into the same shelter that Ishmael was in. Ishmael has known him for a very long time.
Uncle Tommy: Uncle Tommy becomes Ishmael’s foster parent after he leaves the shelter. Uncle Tommy has three kids and a wife, all of whom welcome Ishmael as their new brother. Uncle Tommy is a carpenter. They all love Ishmael irrevocably, and unconditionally. Uncle Tommy and his wife are the only one's who know about Ishmael's past. However, they forgive him and take him in as their own son right away. Ishmael truly feels like he belongs when he is with them.
Musa: Musa is one of Ishmael’s friends from his home village that he meets in the wilderness. He loves to tell stories; he is killed in the first battle that Ishmael and his squad fight in.
Kanei: Kanei is one of Ishmael’s friends from his home village that he meets in the wilderness.
Saidu: Saidu is one of Ishmael's friends from his home village that he meets in the wilderness. He dies suddenly 2 nights after he and the other boys eat a crow that fell from the sky.
Junior: Junior is Ishmael’s older brother. Ishmael sees Junior for the last time as they are both running from the RUF and are separated. Later in the book, Ishmael learns that his brother had escaped and was in the next village. However, on his way to the village to be reunited with his family, Ishmael hears the RUF attacking. Though Junior's body is not found among the dead, it is assumed that Junior was killed by the RUF.
Talloi: Talloi is Ishmael and Junior’s friend. Talloi goes with Junior and Ishmael to a talent show. The three end up being split apart when the RUF attacks the village they are staying at.
Mohamed: Mohamed is one of Ishmael’s friends from his home village that he meets when he is placed in the UNICEF rehabilitation centre where Ishmael has already been for several months.
, where he and several other child soldiers
are to be rehabilitated. However, the children cause much trouble for the volunteer staffers at the facility, with Beah experiencing symptoms of drug withdrawal
as well as troubling memories of his time as a child soldier. Despite the violence caused by the children, one of the staffers, Nurse Esther, becomes interested in Ishmael, learning about his childhood love of rap music
and purchasing him a rap cassette
and Walkman
when she takes Ishmael and his friend Alhaji to the city. It is through this connection and his numerous counseling experiences with Esther that Ishmael eventually turns away from his violent self and starts to heal from his mental wounds. Eventually, Ishmael becomes adopted by one of his uncles in the city and settles down with him and his family on the outskirts of Freetown. It is during this time that Ishmael is chosen to speak to the UN in New York
about his experiences as a child soldier and the other problems plaguing his country.While at the UN meeting in New York Ishmael met several other children who were also experiencing problems in their countries. There were 57 children present at the meeting and each of them told their story to the UN. He also meets Laura Simms, a storyteller
chaperone to Ishmael and his future foster mother. However, in 1996 when Ishmael returns to Sierra Leone, Freetown is invaded by a combination of the RUF and the Sierra Leonean government army, causing many civilian deaths including the passing away of his uncle. Alone, Beah decides to get in contact with Laura, then he escapes Sierra Leone and crosses the border into Guinea
, where he eventually makes his way to the United States
and his new life abroad.
in the Best Debut Author category for 2006.
reported that aspects of Beah's account of his life story did not match other evidence. The report claimed that Beah's village was destroyed in 1995 rather than 1993, and that given the more compressed time frame, he could not have been a soldier for more than a couple of months, rather than the years that he describes in his book. He would also have been aged 15 when he became a soldier, rather than 13. Questions were also raised about Beah's description of a battle between child soldiers at a UNICEF camp, in which 6 people were said to have been killed. Witnesses interviewed by The Australian said that such an event in a UNICEF camp would have drawn significant attention in Sierra Leone, but no independent verification of such a battle could be obtained. Investigations by other publications also failed to discover other evidence of such a battle, and UNICEF, while supportive of Beah in general, also said that it had not been able to verify this aspect of his story.
The Australian's claims were subsequently denied in a statement issued by Beah, in which he called into question the reliability of the sources quoted. The statement also cited the fact that during the early stages of its research, the newspaper had investigated the possibility that Beah's father was still alive, a possibility that was based on mistaken identity by an Australian mining engineer. The Australian's published articles stated that they had established that the man in question was not Beah's father.
Beah's adoptive mother also reaffirmed her belief in the validity of the dates, quoting two Sierra Leonean sources who corroborated the chronology of events given in his book. However, the publisher amended this statement after The Australian objected that it seriously misrepresented the newspaper's report. The source cited by the publisher, Mr. Leslie Mboka, National Chairman of the Campaign for Just Mining, was in fact quoted by The Australian. The newspaper quoted him as saying that Beah "was a young child who had been through terrible things so he could easily have got things mixed up." Mr. Mboka, when subsequently contacted by the publisher, reported to them that he had vigorously supported Beah's chronology when interviewed by The Australian, and had challenged the paper for bias. However, Mr. Mboka had not met Beah until after the disputed events had taken place, and so was unable to provide firsthand verification of his account. The other correction involved the newspaper's publication, not of Beah's foster-mother's address but of her publicly listed website address; hate mail had indeed been received, but via the Internet. While the publisher made note of these, it stood by the accuracy of the book.
The dispute over Beah's credibility arose at a time when the exposure of some "fictional" memoirs, such as Margaret Seltzer
's account of growing up in a Los Angeles crime gang and James Frey
's account of drug addiction had led to debate over the nature of the genre. The controversy was followed up in international publications including the British Sunday Times, Slate
, and the Village Voice. Beah had claimed to have a "photographic memory" which enabled him to have perfect recall of the events he described, leaving him "less room to maneuver" than if he allowed room for human error. However, some of his defenders as well as his critics allowed for the possibility that his account was not entirely accurate, stating that the main point was that he had drawn attention to an issue that was of vital importance. Possible explanations for any inaccuracies include the trauma of war as experienced by a young child, the drug use described in his account, and the possibility that Beah was tacitly encouraged by outsiders to compile stories from multiple sources into a singular autobiographical account.
Neil Boothby
, an academic who has undertaken extensive research into children and war, said that while all of the atrocities described by Beah have occurred at various points, it would be highly unusual for one child to have experienced them all. Boothby criticized the mentality that provided attention only to those with the most horrific stories to tell, thus encouraging exaggeration. "I've seen it over and over. Whether by psychologists or journalists, they are encouraged to tell the sensational stories...The system is set up to reward sensational stories. We all need to look at why does something have to be so horrific before we open our eyes and ears and hearts?"
Mr Beah has made a vigorous response to the charges leveled against him in The Australian. His comments and self defense can be found at: http://www.bookninja.com/?p=3652
.
Ishmael Beah
Ishmael Beah is a former Sierra Leonean child soldier and the author of the published memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.-Early years:...
. Published in 2007, this book provides a firsthand account of the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts worldwide. Ishmael Beah was forced to run away from attacking rebels in Sierra Leone at the young age of 12. He was then forever separated from his direct family. He wandered his war-filled country and was then forced to join an army unit where they brainwashed him into believing in only large guns and blood. By thirteen, he had experienced incidents that others may not have to deal with throughout their entire lives. At the age of 16 however, he was removed from the unit by the UNICEF and was given a chance to be forgiven and to be loved once more. With the help of some of the staff he was able to forgive himself for everything he had done and to finally move on. He was then given a chance to teach others about the hell he was forced to be put through called war. He traveled the United States teaching people about the devastating and unforgettable things that he was forced to encounter and the things that millions of kids all over the world still have to encounter today.
Main character list
Ishmael Beah: The main character of the book. Ishmael was a child soldier for the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. His parents and brother were killed by the Revolutionary United FrontRevolutionary United Front
The Revolutionary United Front was a rebel army that fought a failed eleven-year war in Sierra Leone, starting in 1991 and ending in 2002. It later developed into a political party, which existed until 2007...
, or RUF. After being rescued by UNICEF and rehabilitated, he went to live with his Uncle Tommy. While there, he was recruited to travel to the United States to speak at a United Nations event about child soldiers. Returning to Freetown after his speaking event, he eventually made his way back to the United States. As a result of time, he was able to forgive himself and love once again.
Esther: Esther is a nurse at the shelter that Ishmael develops a friendship with. Ishmael tells parts of his war stories and dreams to Esther. She is the only person he trusts 100%. He is absolutely in love with her, and he believes she cares for him as well. Esther gives Ishmael a walkman with a Bob Marley cassette. This is one of his most prized possessions. Esther does regular check-ups on the mental health of Ishmael during his time being rehabilitated at Benin Home.
Mambu: Mambu, child soldier who was with the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. Mambu and Ishmael meet at the shelter for the first time. They become close friends. He later goes back to the front lines after his family rejects taking him in. He was not as lucky as Ishmael, and as far as the reader knows, he never got a second chance to be forgiven and to be loved.
Alhaji: Alhaji is one of Ishmael’s closest friends. Ishmael knew Alhaji from his times in the army. Alhaji was eventually rescued by UNICEF and put into the same shelter that Ishmael was in. Ishmael has known him for a very long time.
Uncle Tommy: Uncle Tommy becomes Ishmael’s foster parent after he leaves the shelter. Uncle Tommy has three kids and a wife, all of whom welcome Ishmael as their new brother. Uncle Tommy is a carpenter. They all love Ishmael irrevocably, and unconditionally. Uncle Tommy and his wife are the only one's who know about Ishmael's past. However, they forgive him and take him in as their own son right away. Ishmael truly feels like he belongs when he is with them.
Musa: Musa is one of Ishmael’s friends from his home village that he meets in the wilderness. He loves to tell stories; he is killed in the first battle that Ishmael and his squad fight in.
Kanei: Kanei is one of Ishmael’s friends from his home village that he meets in the wilderness.
Saidu: Saidu is one of Ishmael's friends from his home village that he meets in the wilderness. He dies suddenly 2 nights after he and the other boys eat a crow that fell from the sky.
Junior: Junior is Ishmael’s older brother. Ishmael sees Junior for the last time as they are both running from the RUF and are separated. Later in the book, Ishmael learns that his brother had escaped and was in the next village. However, on his way to the village to be reunited with his family, Ishmael hears the RUF attacking. Though Junior's body is not found among the dead, it is assumed that Junior was killed by the RUF.
Talloi: Talloi is Ishmael and Junior’s friend. Talloi goes with Junior and Ishmael to a talent show. The three end up being split apart when the RUF attacks the village they are staying at.
Mohamed: Mohamed is one of Ishmael’s friends from his home village that he meets when he is placed in the UNICEF rehabilitation centre where Ishmael has already been for several months.
Plot summary
The book starts with Ishmael and Junior (Beah’s older brother), and their friend traveling to a village in order to perform in a talent show. Beah, Junior, and their friend dance and sing rap music. They learned a couple songs and are going to perform in a contest. On their way to the contest, they stop by multiple villages. During their stay in the second village, the RUF attacks. The three are able to flee the village without the rebels following them. They decide to head back home. On their way back home, it turns out that their village was also captured by the RUF. According to an old man who was sitting outside the village, most of the people fled to a village on the Sierra Leone coast. Beah, Junior, and their friend decide to travel there in order to locate their family. On their way to the village, they stop by multiple other villages. At one village, they spend a couple days. The village is soon attacked. Caught by surprise, Ishmael, Junior, and their friend split up and run into the swamps. Ishmael roams around the wilderness by himself for a while until he meets up with another group of traveling boys whom he recognized from his home village. They travel together to another village on the coast. Many refugees fled to this village because the Sierra Leone Armed Forces occupied it. In search of safety, the group of boys and Ishmael go to that village. After a couple of peaceful days, the lieutenant in charge of the troops in the village announced that the RUF is beginning to assault the village. The lieutenant said that in order for the people to survive they must contribute to the war effort by enlisting in the army, escape was not an option. By doing this, the lieutenant secures many child soldiers, the weapon of choice for both the RUF and the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. Ishmael becomes a junior lieutenant for his skill in executing prisoners of war and is put in charge of a small group of other child soldiers. As a child soldier Ishmael is exposed to extreme violence and drug usage. The drugs he used are described in the book as “brown brown”, “white pills”, and marijuana. In January 1996, during one of the roll calls, a group of men wearing UNICEF shirts round up several boys and takes them to a shelter in the capital of Sierra Leone, FreetownFreetown
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...
, where he and several other child soldiers
Military use of children
The military use of children takes three distinct forms: children can take direct part in hostilities , or they can be used in support roles such as porters, spies, messengers, look outs, and sexual slaves; or they can be used for political advantage either as human shields or in...
are to be rehabilitated. However, the children cause much trouble for the volunteer staffers at the facility, with Beah experiencing symptoms of drug withdrawal
Withdrawal
Withdrawal can refer to any sort of separation, but is most commonly used to describe the group of symptoms that occurs upon the abrupt discontinuation/separation or a decrease in dosage of the intake of medications, recreational drugs, and alcohol...
as well as troubling memories of his time as a child soldier. Despite the violence caused by the children, one of the staffers, Nurse Esther, becomes interested in Ishmael, learning about his childhood love of rap music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
and purchasing him a rap cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
and Walkman
Walkman
Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones...
when she takes Ishmael and his friend Alhaji to the city. It is through this connection and his numerous counseling experiences with Esther that Ishmael eventually turns away from his violent self and starts to heal from his mental wounds. Eventually, Ishmael becomes adopted by one of his uncles in the city and settles down with him and his family on the outskirts of Freetown. It is during this time that Ishmael is chosen to speak to the UN in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
about his experiences as a child soldier and the other problems plaguing his country.While at the UN meeting in New York Ishmael met several other children who were also experiencing problems in their countries. There were 57 children present at the meeting and each of them told their story to the UN. He also meets Laura Simms, a storyteller
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
chaperone to Ishmael and his future foster mother. However, in 1996 when Ishmael returns to Sierra Leone, Freetown is invaded by a combination of the RUF and the Sierra Leonean government army, causing many civilian deaths including the passing away of his uncle. Alone, Beah decides to get in contact with Laura, then he escapes Sierra Leone and crosses the border into Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
, where he eventually makes his way to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and his new life abroad.
Awards and recognition
"A Long Way Gone" was nominated for a Quill AwardQuill Awards
The Quill Award was an American literary award that ran for three years in 2005-07. It was a "consumer-driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy." The Quills Foundation, the organization behind the Quill Award, was supported by a number of notable media corporations,...
in the Best Debut Author category for 2006.
Credibility dispute
In 2009, The AustralianThe Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
reported that aspects of Beah's account of his life story did not match other evidence. The report claimed that Beah's village was destroyed in 1995 rather than 1993, and that given the more compressed time frame, he could not have been a soldier for more than a couple of months, rather than the years that he describes in his book. He would also have been aged 15 when he became a soldier, rather than 13. Questions were also raised about Beah's description of a battle between child soldiers at a UNICEF camp, in which 6 people were said to have been killed. Witnesses interviewed by The Australian said that such an event in a UNICEF camp would have drawn significant attention in Sierra Leone, but no independent verification of such a battle could be obtained. Investigations by other publications also failed to discover other evidence of such a battle, and UNICEF, while supportive of Beah in general, also said that it had not been able to verify this aspect of his story.
The Australian's claims were subsequently denied in a statement issued by Beah, in which he called into question the reliability of the sources quoted. The statement also cited the fact that during the early stages of its research, the newspaper had investigated the possibility that Beah's father was still alive, a possibility that was based on mistaken identity by an Australian mining engineer. The Australian's published articles stated that they had established that the man in question was not Beah's father.
Beah's adoptive mother also reaffirmed her belief in the validity of the dates, quoting two Sierra Leonean sources who corroborated the chronology of events given in his book. However, the publisher amended this statement after The Australian objected that it seriously misrepresented the newspaper's report. The source cited by the publisher, Mr. Leslie Mboka, National Chairman of the Campaign for Just Mining, was in fact quoted by The Australian. The newspaper quoted him as saying that Beah "was a young child who had been through terrible things so he could easily have got things mixed up." Mr. Mboka, when subsequently contacted by the publisher, reported to them that he had vigorously supported Beah's chronology when interviewed by The Australian, and had challenged the paper for bias. However, Mr. Mboka had not met Beah until after the disputed events had taken place, and so was unable to provide firsthand verification of his account. The other correction involved the newspaper's publication, not of Beah's foster-mother's address but of her publicly listed website address; hate mail had indeed been received, but via the Internet. While the publisher made note of these, it stood by the accuracy of the book.
The dispute over Beah's credibility arose at a time when the exposure of some "fictional" memoirs, such as Margaret Seltzer
Margaret Seltzer
Margaret Seltzer is an American writer. Her first book, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival , about her alleged experiences growing up as a half white, half Native American foster child and Bloods gang member in South Central Los Angeles, was proven to be fictitious...
's account of growing up in a Los Angeles crime gang and James Frey
James Frey
James Christopher Frey is an American writer. His books A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard , as well as Bright Shiny Morning , were bestsellers...
's account of drug addiction had led to debate over the nature of the genre. The controversy was followed up in international publications including the British Sunday Times, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, and the Village Voice. Beah had claimed to have a "photographic memory" which enabled him to have perfect recall of the events he described, leaving him "less room to maneuver" than if he allowed room for human error. However, some of his defenders as well as his critics allowed for the possibility that his account was not entirely accurate, stating that the main point was that he had drawn attention to an issue that was of vital importance. Possible explanations for any inaccuracies include the trauma of war as experienced by a young child, the drug use described in his account, and the possibility that Beah was tacitly encouraged by outsiders to compile stories from multiple sources into a singular autobiographical account.
Neil Boothby
Neil Boothby
Neil Boothby is the Allan Rosenfield Professor of Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health...
, an academic who has undertaken extensive research into children and war, said that while all of the atrocities described by Beah have occurred at various points, it would be highly unusual for one child to have experienced them all. Boothby criticized the mentality that provided attention only to those with the most horrific stories to tell, thus encouraging exaggeration. "I've seen it over and over. Whether by psychologists or journalists, they are encouraged to tell the sensational stories...The system is set up to reward sensational stories. We all need to look at why does something have to be so horrific before we open our eyes and ears and hearts?"
Mr Beah has made a vigorous response to the charges leveled against him in The Australian. His comments and self defense can be found at: http://www.bookninja.com/?p=3652
.
External links
- ALongWayGone.com - A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier website