Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. The civil war that began in 1991 broke up his family and his home region. In his account he was forced into the government army at thirteen and fought for about two years before UNICEF got him out and placed him in a rehabilitation home in Freetown. In November 2007 UNICEF named him its first Advocate for Children Affected by War. That same year he founded a foundation that helps children affected by war return to society. He also sits on the Human Rights Watch Children's Advisory Committee.

His subject is what happens to young people after violence, and what it takes to rebuild a life or a home. A Long Way Gone is a memoir in plain, direct prose. It starts with a boy who loves rap music and ends somewhere very different. He then turned to fiction. Radiance of Tomorrow came out in 2014. Little Family followed in 2020. It follows young people in a conflict-scarred country who make a household of their own.

A Long Way Gone reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list and has been published in more than forty languages. Time ranked it third among the best nonfiction books of 2007, and it was nominated for a Quill Award for best debut author. In 2008 an Australian newspaper questioned some of the memoir's dates and the length of his service. Beah and his publisher stood by the book, and the argument became a wider discussion of how memoirists rely on memory.

Start with A Long Way Gone, the book most readers know him by and the source of everything else he writes. If it leaves you wanting fiction, Radiance of Tomorrow is the natural next book.