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    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
    Audiobook7 hours

    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

    Written by Ishmael Beah

    Narrated by Ishmael Beah

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateMar 20, 2007
    ISBN9781427202314
    A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for A Long Way Gone

    4/5

    1,900 ratings197 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Book #1 for my new book club.

      I liked the first 10/11 chapters of the book as the author talked about his ways of hiding in the forest. Then for a hot second (a chapter) he is a boy soldier, then the end of the book focuses on his rehabilitation. I wanted to hear more about his time as a soldier and not told in a type of flashback. That was my main issue with the book. It is still a good book to read. I was just let down a tad bit.
    • 3/5
      From Carolyn. Lets you be in this terrible tragedy.
    • 5/5
      This book was heartbreaking but amazing. In it Ishmael Beah documents some of his struggles as he tries to survive the civil war in Sierra Leone. He talks about his time running from the war, as a child soldier, his rehabilitation and his exodus out of his homeland. The book did not end the way I have come to expect from books, many things were left up in the air, but I think it was fitting ending for what he had experienced.
    • 4/5
      Much like "We Regret to Inform You..." this is a really hard book to read, but interesting. I found the writing easy to follow and very clear. The language engages you though sometimes, it feels like it has holes throughout (though that could just be from the author's non-remembering), and it ends just as he's leaving Sierra Leone, though I would've like to have read more about his experiences afterwards. But, perhaps that in itself is another book. Definitely worth reading.
    • 3/5
      Simply written, but the story was good.
    • 4/5
      “A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah is the memoir of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. This true story is of Ishmael Beah who lives a happy life until civil war breaks out in his country. Like other civilians, he is forced to run for his life. He becomes separated from his family who are all later murder by the rebels. He is later able to in some way regain his childhood. He finds love after all of the hardships of war. This gripping account is an insightful look at what children all across the globe are facing in the heat of war. Everyday children are thrust into battle, seeing their families and lives torn apart. I found this book to be insightful, emotional, and heart-wrenching. However, I would recommend it to anyone who wants the cold hard facts about war and what is really going on across the world to children and families.
    • 5/5
      Phenomenal book, and story, would highly recommend, was absolutely speechless multiple times! Excellent storytelling read by the author him self.
    • 5/5
      So much of his account of the civil war is horrific, and I can't even imagine having to endure the fear and killing that Beah encountered as a child. Very sad.
    • 3/5
      This man went through some terrible events in his life; events that are on the outer realms of my imagination. But, the writing is fairly week and the chronology of the events doesn't really make sense. It seems as if there is so much that Beah doesn't know what to add or subtract.
    • 5/5
      Very touching and moving. Very unlike anything I've ever read before.
    • 5/5
      What a read! Ishmael’s story is raw; his voice, genuine.
    • 5/5
      Wow.This book killed me, but I kind of knew it would going in. Any kind of autobiography of this sort is bound to be painful beyond words for anyone with basic human empathy. And it was well written to boot!It ends a little awkwardly, but it makes sense in a thematic way.
    • 4/5
      Overall, I enjoyed this book and looked forward to reading it each time I got round to picking it up. However, I must confess that I got a bit confused as to the time line and some events along the way. One minute Ishmael was fleeing the rebels, the next minute a new chapter started with him being taken off at gunpoint by army soldiers to join them. I didn't feel that it was made very clear whether he had any choice about joining the army or not, but I originally assumed not. Later, towards the end of the book, he suggests he joined the army to avenge his family. I'm still not sure whether he was forced into it or not. Flipping to and fro, I eventually figured that he joined the army at 13 and was 'rescued' (albeit against his will at the time) at the age of 15.The big let-down for me with this book was the ending. I would really like to know how Ishmael made it from Guinea to the US and how his transition into life in the US went. Perhaps we might expect a follow up at some point? I would expect a memoir written by a teenager in a position such as this to be somewhat confused as to certain points and events in the story and maybe the story was left a bit hazy in order to convey this impression. However, I feel a good editor would have helped to shape things a bit better in order to help the reader along. Whilst reading this book, I found the pictures on the front and back covers compelling and found myself looking at them again and again throughout my reading; from the sad, resigned-looking little boy on the front cover with his broken shoes and weapons slung round his body to the beautiful boy on the back cover (I'm assuming this is the author), laughing with one of those smiles that creeps all over your face and completely takes it over.
    • 5/5
      The author did a great job narrating his own story on audio so that made the book a little more personal. I felt like I learned a lot about the war in Syria Leon because I don’t know much about that history.
    • 5/5
      The entire life story of Ishmael is touching to the human soul. The tragedy’s that led him to become a soldier in a seemingly endless war, than the evolution of his rehabilitation into a gentleman is amazing. To than aim to share his stories of loss and anguish to show the world that something needed to be done
    • 5/5
      Ishmael is such an unassuming story teller sharing horrific experiences so eloquently and authentically. The gentleness of his voice belies the violence, making it easier to bare, but also showing the depth of his thoughtful nature.
      A very good way to understand the atrocity of child soldiers.
    • 5/5
      Extraordinarily readable/listenable account of a young teenager’s survival of repeated tragic loss of family and, not least, the belief in his own guilt after being recruited as a child soldier. One learns a lot about people in war.
      Beah’s story ends happily; but there seem to be very few that do the same.
    • 4/5
      Listened to this book as it's one my daughter is reading for high school. It was very moving...stories like this SHOULD be told/shared. My heart goes to any child that endures such a life.
    • 4/5
      In plain unremarkable prose, Beah provides a rare accounting of what it was like to be a child solider in the Sierra Leonian army during the civil war. After a traumatizing early life that robbed Ishamael Beah of his youth first as a refugee and then a child soldier in the Sierra Leonian army fighting the RUF during the civil war in the 1990s, Beah was rehabilitied through UNICEF programs and ultimately came to the US to study and write his memoirs. Unflinchingly, he writes of the atrocities he and his fellow soldiers committed and the mentality that enabled him to enact such brutality. Fortunately, Beah's memoir is neither permeated with a wrenching need for forgiveness, nor a solipsistic demeaner, but rather he tells his war stories as he saw them, including how much he hated being told that what he did was 'not his fault'. Uniquely a personal story of a child soldier, Beah largely stays away the whys and wherefores of the politics and power that led to such a mess, and this is just as well since Beah was basically ignorant of it himself at the time. Nevertheless, from this book alone, the unfamiliar reader may have a hard time getting a sense of why the war happened in the first place, the current (as of writing) state of Sierra Leone, where the country will go from here, or any sense of how this type of warfare and use and abuse of children soldiers can be prevented in the future in Africa or elsewhere.
    • 5/5
      My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life."Why did you leave Sierra Leone?""Because there is a war.""You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?""Yes, all the time.""Cool."I smile a little."You should tell us about it sometime.""Yes, sometime."This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? 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 until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: 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 a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
    • 5/5
      This is the tenth time that I read/listened to this book. The BEST book I’ve ever read…
    • 4/5
      I'm really glad I read this book. It helps show how a person's character isn't only a product of his actions. I wouldn't be surprised to find this book in our literary canon a few years from now. It would be a good companion work to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Narrative of the Life of a Slave.
    • 3/5
      The memoir of Ishmael Beah, a child soldier of the civil war in Sierra Leone. The stories of what he endured from inhuman treatment, the kindness he received from some, and how he eventually managed to make his way to the United States are haunting.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written and moving book about a child warrior in Africa who separates himself from the nonsense and comes to a new life in New York.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing tale of tragedy and survival and proves once again that the human spirit can avail over anything. I would heartily recommend this book right alongside Dave Eggers' "What is the What". They deal with very similar stories and are both incredibly well written.
    • 3/5
      I feel kind of horrible saying this because Beah's experiences were truly horrific and it is brave and heroic of him to tell his story, but the storytelling itself wasn't the strongest here. Very little of the story was spent describing his time in the army, which is understandable considering how traumatizing it was, but the subtitle of this book leads the reader to think there will be more of a discussion on this. Way too much time was spent on his roaming the countryside before his induction (abduction?) into the army, and it almost lost me completely. Beah's rehabilitation was touching, and I wouldn't have minded more reflection on his time in NYC (or when he moved there after his escape). Just overall, the story read unevenly.
    • 4/5
      How I happened to have A LONG WAY GONE was a first for me. It was a gift from my oldest (15) granddaughter, along with a letter which offered this synopsis -"This is the memoir of a man named Ishmael Beah, and in it he recounts the years that he spent as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. The first half of the novel [sic] is about being attacked by rebels and being recruited by the army to fight against them. The second half includes flashbacks to the things he did as a soldier as he attempts a recovery from the traumas he faced at a rehabilitation center. It is truly great literature and I hope that you enjoy it."I find this to be a pretty succinct summing up of what's in Beah's memoir of his years as a boy soldier in the government army of Sierra Leone during its years-long civil war. And Beah was indeed traumatized by these experiences, as he told us -"I had seen heads cut off by machetes, smashed by cement bricks, and rivers filled with so much blood that the water had ceased flowing ... I closed my eyes hard to avoid thinking, but the eye of my mind refused to be closed and continued to plague me with images."Beah served in this hellish servitude between the ages of 13 and fifteen, armed with an automatic rifle, bayonet and grenades. Think about that: a soldier at 13 years old. And this was a boy who spoke at least three languages and had already studied Shakespeare in the 9th grade and could recite whole passages from JULIUS CAESAR.I also found it quite striking how relevant Beah's story was to what is happening in our own country today. What he said about his civil war is equally true about our own starkly divided country in these times -"This was one of the consequences of the civil war. People stopped trusting each other and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you."And, a bit later, he and his fellow refugee boys encounter an old man who offers food and shelter and tells them -"My children, this country has lost its good heart. People don't trust each other anymore. Years ago you would have been heartily welcomed in this village. I hope that you can find safety before this untrustworthiness and fear cause someone to harm you."A LONG WAY GONE was first published in 2007, a critically acclaimed bestseller, so I'm a bit late to the party. Ishmael Beah was born in 1980, so he was only 27 when the book came out. A graduate of Oberlin College, Beah is now closing fast on forty. Googling him, I learned he has since published two novels, which might be worth looking into, but I wonder most if he will write another memoir, because this one ended a bit too abruptly I thought. I wanted to know, as Paul Harvey used to say, "the REST of the story." But I will agree with my granddaughter's assessment that "It is truly great literature." It deserves to join the ever-increasing pantheon of modern war lit. Thank you, 'T.' And I DID enjoy it. Very highly recommended. (four and a half stars)- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
    • 5/5
      A book to remind you of how insane humans are, and how lucky you (likely) are to be born somewhere safe. The book recounts the authors childhood journey as a child soldier. Humans are capable of both incredible evil, and incredible kindness. Redemption is always within reach, and even against seemingly insurmountable odds - we all can persevere. This is one of those books you read to remind yourself that life is brutal, and from that brutality we (hopefully) learn some important lessons about life, and humanity.
    • 4/5
      Insight into the lives of boy soldiers in Sierra Leone during a civil war. The violence is unimaginable, yet this memoir shows the compassion and feelings of its author. Knowing he survived is the only thing that kept me reading as the harshness of war tormented Ishmael and those he met.
    • 4/5
      This is another one of those books that is horrible to read but vitally important to understand. In particular, those of us privileged enough to live in safe countries where these sort of events seem like nightmares from another world and we are so concerned with our own safety that we would deny entry to folks fleeing atrocities of this nature.I have tremendous gratitude to Mr. Beah for sharing this deeply personal and intimate story.