A Long Way Gone

A LARGE PRINT EDITION

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. Ishmael Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story: how, at the age of twelve in Sierra Leone, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognisable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army and, though at heart a gentle boy, found he was capable of truly terrible acts.

Ishmael Beah now lives in the United States. He moved there when he was seventeen, and graduated from Oberlin College in 2004. He is a member of The Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division Committee and has spoken before the United Nations on several occasions. He lives in New York'City. --back cover