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Ishmael Beah (born 23 November 1980)UNICEF, Youth leadership profiles , unicef.org; retrieved 15 February 2007. is a author and human rights activist who rose to fame with his acclaimed memoir, A Long Way Gone. His novel Radiance of Tomorrow was published in January 2014. His most recent novel Little Family was published in April 2020.
Beah says he does not remember how many people he killed during his time in the Sierra Leonean government army. He and other soldiers smoked marijuana and sniffed and "brown-brown", a mix of cocaine and gunpowder. He blames the addictions and the brainwashing for his violencePitkin, James, "Ishmael Beah—An ex-child soldier's trip from Sierra Leone's war to a Starbucks bookshelf" , Willamette Week, 14 February 2007; retrieved 15 February 2007. and cites them 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 a 14 February 2007 appearance on The Daily Show with host Jon Stewart, Beah said that he believed that returning to civilized society was more difficult than the act of becoming a child soldier, saying that dehumanising children is a relatively easy task. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 14 February 2007. 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 and reggae since he was a kid, gave him a Walkman and a Run DMC 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 in New York, 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."Alissa Swango, NYC24, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, A Child Soldier Grows Up , 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2007.
In 2009, the 29-year-old travelled home to Sierra Leone with an ABC News camera, a return that he describes as bittersweet. Later in February 2013, he travelled to Calgary and spoke at the My World Conference.McFadden, Cynthia, and Karson Yiu, "Child Soldier's Long Way Home", ABCNews.go.com, 5 August 2008. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
In 2013, Beah married French-born Congolese Iranian Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda. They have three children and live around the world.
With his novel, Radiance of Tomorrow, Beah explores the life of a community including Benjamin and Bockarie, two friends who return to Bockarie's hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. Radiance of Tomorrow is said to be 'written with the moral urgency of a parable and the searing precision of a firsthand account'. It earned positive reviews in the New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post,Charles, Ron (31 December 2013), Review of Radiance of Tomorrow, washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 10 December 2014. and the Boston Globe.
On January 24, 2020, Beah spoke, together with Romeo Dallaire and Omar Khadr, at a conference at Dalhousie University, on human rights and child soldiers.
In April 2020, Beah published his third book, Little Family. A "deeply affecting novel", Little Family tells the story of five young people living at the margins of society and struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together.
Controversy
Reporting in The Australian, a conservative Australian daily newspaper published by a subsidiary of the Murdoch-owned News Corp, called into question the accuracy of some events and the chronology in A Long Way Gone, particularly the claim that Beah became a child soldier in 1993, rather than in 1995.Sherman, Gabriel, "The Fog of Memoir: The feud over the truthfulness of Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone", slate.com, 2008; accessed 10 December 2014. Beah has defended his account.
Bibliography
Essays and short works
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Categories: 1980 Births, 21st-century Memoirists, Child Soldiers In Africa, Living People, Oberlin College Alumni, People From Bonthe District, Sierra Leonean Emigrants To The United States, Sierra Leonean Human Rights Activists, Sierra Leonean Memoirists, Sierra Leonean Military Personnel, Sierra Leonean Muslims, Sierra Leonean Refugees, Sierra Leonean Writers, United Nations International School Alumni
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