"A Long Way Gone" was written in 2007 by Ishmael Beah when he was 26 years old. Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone on November 23, 1980. Ishmael lived a happy life in Sierra Leone until he was captured and forced to be a child soldier. Ishmael Beah, the author of "A Long Way Gone" wrote this book to make the public aware of how children are the absolute victims of wars fought in Third world countries, including those children that have participated in the atrocities as soldiers. The book is a compelling account of the author's personal experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. I think the author achieved his goals in writing this book, as it is an eye opening account of the tragedy of what is going on in the world today.
The book "A Long Way Gone" was organized chronologically, for the most part. The first chapter is a brief reflection of the author's life as a high school student in New York, after he left Sierra Leone. The book then flashes back to 1993 and the beginning of the tragic events in Sierra Leone that would eventually bring him to the United States. The story was told by the author in the first person perspective, which aided in my comprehension because it was as if he was actually telling me the story. If the story had been told differently, I don't think I would've understood the situation as he lived it.
Ishmael Beah's main point in writing the book "A Long Way Gone" is to let the world know that the increasing use of children as soldiers is extremely bad and must be stopped. He says that "war is hell" and supports this by relating to the reader horrors and tragedies that are almost unbelievable. For example in chapter 14 he says that "He takes turns as the guard posts around the village and becomes addicted to marijuana, cocaine and white capsules. When he first takes these drugs in combination, he acts in a more than bizarre manner, but eventually, he comes to feel only numbness to everything and so much energy that he can’t sleep for weeks".
Ishmael Beah's style of writing is not terribly developed and at times a bit rough to give the reader the sense that he was only a child when the events happened. This is more than compensated for by the fact that the story he has to tell is so mind-boggling. The type of word choice and sentence structure he uses is that he writes in first person and uses very appropriate grammatical sentences. He is showing that he is now an educated writer and we can tell that he wants to show this to people.
Because Ishmael Beah really was a child soldier and this is his story, we can trust that the book is factual because he was the one that lived it. After fleeing Sierra Leone in 1998, Ishamael Beah completed high school at the United Nations International School in New York. He then attended Oberlin College in Ohio and graduated in 2004. He is currently a member of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Advisory Committee and has spoken to the United Nations on several occasions about the issues of children affected by war.
The book "A Long Way Gone" was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book has received really good reviewsand has won some awards. "A Long Way Gone" was named one of the top ten Nonfiction books of 2007 by Time Magazine. Also "A Long Way Gone" was nominated for a Quill award in the Best Debut Author category in 2007. The Quill Award is a consumer driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy. The critics said that Ishmael Beah's story is one of the most important war stories of our generation. "A Long Way Gone" is a wrenching, beautiful and mesmerizing tale.
