Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah is the author of the memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, published in 2007.

In 1991, a vicious civil war overtook Sierra Leone. His parents and two brothers were killed; at the age of 13, he was pressed into service as a child soldier. He fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. He fought in the war, and after the war he continued to fight. Later in 1998, he fled from Freetown due to the increasing violence there and travelled to New York City. He now considers his foster mother, Laura Simms, his mother. In New York City, Beah attended the United Nations International School in Manhattan. After high school, he attended Oberlin College, graduating in 2004 with a degree in Politics.

During his time in the government army, Beah says he killed "too many people to count." He and other soldiers smoked marijuana and sniffed amphetamines and "brown-brown", a mix of cocaine and gunpowder. He blames the addictions for his violence and cites the addictions and the pressures of the army as reasons for his inability to escape on his own: "If you left, it was as good as being dead."

 During an appearance on The Daily Show in America on February 14, 2007, Beah said that he believed that returning to civilized society was more difficult than the act of becoming a child soldier—that dehumanizing children is a relatively easy task. Rescued in 1996 by a coalition of UNICEF and NGOs, he found the transition difficult. He and his fellow child soldiers fought frequently. He credits one volunteer, Nurse Esther, with having the patience and compassion required to bring him through the difficult period. She recognized his interest in American rap music, gave him a Walkman and a Run-D.M.C. cassette, and employed music as his bridge to his past, prior to the violence. Slowly, he accepted her assurances that "it's not your fault."

Living in Freetown with an uncle, he went to school and was invited to speak in 1996 at the UN in New York. When Freetown was overrun by the joined forces of the rebels (RUF or Revolutionary United Front) and Army of Sierra Leone in 1997 (the Army of Sierra Leone was originally fighting against the RUF), he contacted Laura Simms, whom he had met the year before, and made his way to the United States.

 "If I choose to feel guilty for what I have done, I will want to be dead myself," Beah said. "I live knowing that I have been given a second life, and I just try to have fun, and be happy and live it the best I can."

While at college at Oberlin, Beah pursued advocacy work against the abuse of children in wartime. He spoke at the UN and met with leaders including Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.

A Long Way Gone

A gripping story of a child’s journey through hell and back. There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story. At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognisable 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. Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabilitation centre, he struggled to regain his humanity and to re enter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion. This is, at last, a story of redemption and hope.