A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah
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A Long Way Gone
Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Author: Ishmael Beah

Narrator: Ishmael Beah

Unabridged: 7 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/20/2007

Synopsis

In A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah 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 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.

This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

About Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah, born in 1980 in Sierra Leone, West Africa, is the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. The book 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. His work 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 Children’s 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. He is a graduate of Oberlin College with a B.A. in Political Science and resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Debra on 2009-07-31 14:30:35

I am sure there's a purpose for this book but its not the kind I can read or listen too. Too powerful and strong. Very easy listen but the subject matter disturbed me as well it probably should. Nevertheless I sent it back after only the 2nd disc.

Goodreads review by Chris on February 09, 2008

I will never. Never. Complain about my childhood again. Okay, that's not true. I will. But when I let out a sad sigh of remorse that I didn't figure out exactly why I really wanted to be friends with that one guy in band in high school until it was way too late to do anything about it, I will at leas......more

Goodreads review by Whitney on May 26, 2017

4.5 Stars TW: Violence/gore, rape, drug abuse This book reminded me of Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys, not because their subject matter is anything alike, but because I had the same reaction to both books. Throughout the duration of the book it was very impactful and heavy, and I may have shed......more

Goodreads review by Nandakishore on November 08, 2015

This is a very important book, though not an easy one to read. Ishmael's style leaves a lot to be desired, and he is especially weak, I feel, when he tries to be philosophical. But he makes up for that with the descriptions of war, to the depravity which human beings can descend to. The fact that he......more

Goodreads review by Mohamed on September 14, 2020

<الهدف من االاضطهاد هو الاضطهاد والهدف من التعذيب هو التعذيب و الغاية من السلطة هي السلطة > تلك القصة الحقيقية اثبات اخرعلي صحة تلك المقولة لاورويل . فكثيرة هي الجرائم التي ترتكب باسم الوطن و باسم الحرية , في تلك الاوقات –الحرب الاهلية - القتل يكون باسم الوطن و الاغتصاب باسم الحرية , لا مكان للمنطق ا......more

Quotes

“Actor Dominic Hoffman's restrained voice, edged with sadness and poignancy, conveys Beah's difficult emotional state.” —Library Journal

“This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare...Told in clear, accessible language by a young writer with a gifted literary voice, this memoir seems destined to become a classic firsthand account of war and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts worldwide.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), is unforgettable testimony that Africa's children--millions of them dying and orphaned by preventable diseases, hundreds of thousands of them forced into battle--have eyes to see and voices to tell what has happened. And what voices!—Melissa Fay Greene, Elle Magazine

“Hideously effective in conveying the essential horror of his experiences.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Extraordinary . . . A ferocious and desolate account of how ordinary children were turned into professional killers.” —The Guardian UK

“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

“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, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for general Nonfiction

“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

“A Long Way Gone hits you hard in the gut with Sierra Leone's unimaginable brutality and then it touches your soul with unexpected acts of kindness. Ishmael Beah's story tears your heart to pieces and then forces you to put it back together again, because if Beah can emerge from such horror with his humanity in tact, it's the least you can do.” —Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle: A Memoir

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