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A Long Way Gone

The book starts in January 1993, Sierra Leone, when a twelve-year old Ishmael Beah, his older brother and some friends leave their native village of Mogbwemo in the Moyamba District to attend a talent show in a neighboring village a few days away. While there, however, the group learns that their home has been attacked by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). It is from here that the young boys become entangled in a long process of fleeing war violence; being captured by rebel forces and wary villagers alike; as well as trying to find and be reunited with their families. Eventually, Beah becomes separated from the group during an RUF attack and he wanders by himself for a while, spending a few weeks hiding in a jungle before encountering another young group of boys whom he recognizes as being friends from Mogbwemo. He joins this group and they go about much as before, continually wandering and surviving until they reach the town of Yele in the Bonthe District, which has been converted to use as a military base by the Sierra Leonean government army. It is here with the town being surrounded by RUF fighters that Beah, his friends and many other refugees are forcibly conscripted by the army to fight. With the help of drugs, war movies, fellow soldiers and combat violence, Beah becomes a mindless killer before being released from the army to UNICEF a few years later in January 1996 at the age of fifteen. Beah is taken to a shelter in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, where he and several other child soldiers are to be rehabilitated. However, the children cause much trouble for the volunteer staffers at the facility, with Beah experiencing symptoms of drug withdrawal as well as troubling memories of his time as a child soldier. Despite the violence caused by the children, one of the staffers, Nurse Esther, becomes interested in Beah, learning about his childhood love of rap music and purchasing him his first rap cassette and Walkman in years. It is through this...