Ishmael Beah
Ishmael Beah is a Sierra Leonean-American author and human rights advocate whose debut memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, published in 2007, became an international bestseller and one of the most powerful accounts of child soldiering ever written. Born in 1980 in Mogbwemo, Sierra Leone, Beah was twelve years old when civil war shattered his country and displaced him from his family. For months he wandered the war-ravaged countryside before being recruited — or conscripted — into the Sierra Leone Army, where he served as a child soldier until the age of sixteen.
UNICEF workers eventually removed Beah from military service and placed him in a rehabilitation program in Freetown. Through the intervention of a UNICEF worker, he came to the United States in 1998, eventually settling in New York, completing high school, and enrolling at Oberlin College, where he studied political science. It was at Oberlin that he began writing the memoir that would bring his story to the world.
A Long Way Gone describes in unflinching detail the violence Beah both witnessed and participated in, the drugs used to sustain child soldiers, and the slow, painful process of rehabilitation and reintegration into human society. The book received extraordinary critical and popular attention, spending more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list, and sparked important conversations about child soldiers, war crimes, and the resilience of youth. It is now required reading in schools and universities worldwide.
Beah has served as a UNICEF Ambassador for Children Affected by War and has spoken before the United Nations and other international bodies. His second book, the novel Radiance of Tomorrow (2014), depicts post-war Sierra Leone. He continues to write, speak, and advocate for the rights and rehabilitation of children affected by armed conflict.
