A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah recounts his own experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. At age twelve, he fled from attacking rebels through a landscape devastated by violence. By thirteen, he was conscripted into the government army, where despite his gentle nature, he committed acts of violence. He describes how children have become soldiers in modern conflicts, often under the influence of drugs and armed with weapons like AK-47s. Globally, an estimated 300,000 child soldiers participate in more than fifty ongoing conflicts. Beah's account addresses fundamental questions about warfare from a child's perspective: how one becomes a killer, and how one stops. While journalists have profiled child soldiers and novelists have attempted to imagine their experiences, this is a first-person narrative from someone who survived this reality. The memoir is told with literary force and emotional honesty.