Former Child Soldier, Human Rights Activist and Best Selling Author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Program Title: A Long Way Gone

An exclusive with Creative Artists Agency

Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone on November 23, 1980. When he was eleven, Ishmael Beah's life, along with the lives of millions of other Sierra Leoneans, was derailed by the outbreak of a brutal civil war. After Ishmael Beah's parents and two brothers were killed, Ishmael was recruited to fight as a child soldier. He was thirteen. Ishmael Beah fought for over two years before Ishmael Beah was removed from the army by UNICEF and placed in a rehabilitation home in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. After completing rehabilitation in late 1996, Ishmael Beah won a competition to attend a conference at the United Nations to talk about the devastating effects of war on children in his country. It was there that he met his new mother, Laura Simms, a professional storyteller who lives in New York. Ishmael Beah returned to Sierra Leone and continued speaking about his experiences to help bring international attention to the issue of child soldiering and war affected children.

In 1998 Ishmael Beah came to live with his American family in New York City. He completed high school at the United Nations International School, and subsequently went on to Oberlin College in Ohio. Throughout Ishmael Beah's high school and undergraduate education, Ishmael Beah continued his advocacy work to bring attention to the plight of child soldiers and children affected by war around the world, speaking on numerous occasions on behalf of Unicef, Human Rights Watch, United Nations Secretary General’s Office for Children and Armed Conflict, at the United Nations General Assembly, serving on a UN panel with Secretary General Kofi Annan and discussing the issue with dignitaries such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton. Ishmael Beah is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Committee.

In A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a riveting story. At the age of twelve, Ishmael Beah fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, Ishmael Beah had been picked up by the government army, and Ishmael Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabilitation center, Ishmael Beah struggled to regain his humanity and to reenter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion. This is, at last, a story of redemption and hope.