A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
"A Long Way Gone" is a poignant memoir by Ishmael Beah that recounts his experiences as a child soldier during the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002. The memoir begins with Beah's innocent journey to participate in a talent show with his brother and a friend, which quickly spirals into a nightmare as they encounter the chaos and violence unleashed by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Separated from his family and forced into the conflict, Beah is conscripted at the age of thirteen into the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) army, where he becomes numb to violence and loses his sense of morality.
The narrative explores themes of loss, trauma, and resilience, as Beah grapples with the horrors of war and the impact on his childhood. Following his eventual rescue by a UNICEF representative and subsequent rehabilitation, he embarks on a journey of healing and reintegration into society. The memoir also provides critical insight into the broader context of postcolonial Africa, highlighting the tragic phenomenon of child soldiers. Ultimately, Beah's story is one of survival and hope, culminating in his emigration to New York, where he becomes a voice for those affected by war.
Subject Terms
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
First published: 2007
Type of work: Memoir
Time of work: 1992-1998
Locale: Sierra Leone
Principal Personages:
Ishmael Beah , an adolescent soldier in Sierra Leone, AfricaJunior , Ishmael’s older brotherEsther , a nurse in a rehabilitation center
Form and Content
A Long Way Gone records the harrowing experiences of Ishmael Beah as he journeys with his brother and friends through his homeland of Sierra Leone during the civil war that took place in that African nation from 1991 through 2002. Beah becomes an unwilling boy soldier in that conflict after being separated from his parents and hometown of Mogbwemo in southern Sierra Leone.
The author’s journey begins innocently enough. Twelve-year-old Beah, his older brother Junior, and a friend leave Mogbwemo on foot and head for Mattru Jong, sixteen miles away, to participate in a talent show. The boys intend to perform rap music in the show, and they embark on their journey wearing baggy pants and carrying backpacks filled with notebooks of rap lyrics and rap cassettes. This innocent journey, however, commences against the backdrop of a violent civil war that has already exploded in Sierra Leone. President Joseph Saidu Momoh has been ousted in a military coup, and his replacement, the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), is, according to Beah, corrupt. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has been sacking villages in an attempt to create chaos and prove that the NPRC is ineffective. On their journey to Mattru Jong, Beah and his party see refugees on the road, leaving villages attacked by the RUF and telling stories of harrowing violence and human suffering.
While Beah and his brother and friend are in Mattru Jong, they learn that rebels have attacked Mogbwemo. They realize that it is unsafe to return home and that they are likely to be separated from their families for a long time. When rebels move toward Mattru Jong, the boys flee and begin wandering toward the seacoast in search of some safe haven, but they encounter instead the brutal violence and gruesome debris of civil war—ransacked villages, an imam burned alive, a traveling companion shot and killed. Exposed to such violence, Beah begins to experience nightmares, headaches, and other symptoms of psychological stress. He wonders whether his journey will ever end and whether he will ever be reunited with his parents. While Beah is in the village of Kamator, he becomes separated from Junior during a rebel attack. Ishmael never sees his brother again.
After departing Kamator, Beah journeys along the southern coast of Sierra Leone and settles for a time in Yele, which appears to be relatively safe. One day, government soldiers arrive in town. Their commander warns Yele’s residents of impending RUF attacks and displays the bodies of villagers brutally killed by rebels. At that point, Ishmael, age thirteen, is conscripted into the NRPC army, given an AK-47 attack rifle, and trained to kill rebels. In his first skirmish, Beah kills several rebels, including a boy wearing a Tupac Shakur T-shirt.
During his time as a boy soldier, Beah loses his childhood and his humanity. Numbed by the use of cocaine and other narcotics, he becomes a killing machine, and he ceases to see the choices he makes in moral terms. At one point, Beah and three other boy soldiers are ordered to execute captured rebels by slitting the men’s throats with bayonets. The boy whose prisoner dies first will be awarded a promotion in rank. Feeling nothing for his captive, Beah coolly slits the man’s throat and watches him bleed to death. He wins the promotion.
Beah remains a soldier through age fifteen. In January, 1996, he is removed from the army by a UNICEF representative and sent to a rehabilitation center, where he is given schooling and treatment to prepare him for a return to normal life. His adjustment to a life without violence and drugs is difficult. The boy soldiers at the rehabilitation center are addicted to both drugs and violence, and they are often violent and unruly. They experience nightmares and exhibit paranoia. Eventually, a nurse named Esther befriends Beah and coaxes him to discuss his traumatic experiences as well as his prewar life. Her gentleness and her interest in Beah’s music form the basis of a relationship of mutual trust and respect. Beah learns that he possesses the resiliency to outlive his past and commence a new, normal life.
Beah’s stay at the rehabilitation center ends when his uncle adopts him and brings him to Freetown. There, he hears of an opportunity to go to New York and speak at the United Nations on the issue of child soldiers. He does so; shortly after Beah returns to Sierra Leone, his uncle dies, and the nation’s government is overthrown. To avoid the resulting violence, Beah flees from Sierra Leone and travels to Guinea. In 1998, at age eighteen, he emigrates to New York to continue his education.
Critical Context
In its postcolonial era, Africa has been besieged by civil wars and political and social unrest. African writers such as Nadine Gordimer, Athol Fugard, Chinua Achebe, and J. M. Coetzee have chronicled the political upheavals that have scarred their continent. Beah adds his voice to this chorus, and his narrative shines light upon a new atrocity in African civil wars: the use of children as soldiers. Reviewers have compared Beah’s book to David Eggers’s What Is the What (2006), a novel about one of the “lost boys” of Sudan.
Beah’s book is an African story, and he is an American only by migration. Nonetheless, A Long Way Gone can be read in the context of other African American autobiographies, particularly slave narratives. Just as antebellum slaves crossed the Mason-Dixon Line or the Ohio River to escape slavery and find freedom in the North, Beah crosses the Atlantic Ocean to escape the violence and chaos of his war-torn homeland. Like Richard Wright in Black Boy, Beah leaves oppressive native grounds to find freedom and his writer’s voice in a new land.
Bibliography
Abbas, Fatin. “The New Face of War.” The Nation 284 (May 28, 2007): 38-44. Review essay discussing Beah’s A Long Way Gone, P. W. Singer’s Children at War, and Jimmie Briggs’s Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War.
Beah, Ishmael. “Interview with Ishmael Beah.” Kennedy School Review 7 (2007): 1-5. Beah discusses his book, his life since leaving Sierra Leone, and his efforts to enact international laws against the use of child soldiers.
Luscombe, Belinda. “Pop Culture Finds Lost Boys.” Time 169 (February 12, 2007): 62-64. Predicts rock-star status for Ishmael Beah based on his book, his engaging personality, and his eloquence as a public speaker.
Mengestu, Dinaw. “Children of War.” New Statesman 136 (June 18, 2007): 60-61. Discusses A Long Way Gone and two other books about boy soldiers—David Eggers’s What Is the What and Biyi Bandele’s Burma Boy (2007).
Pham, John-Peter. The Sierra Leonean Tragedy: History and Global Dimensions. New York: Nova Science, 2006. Comprehensive history of the 1990’s civil war in Sierra Leone.