But I can't let the deep empathy I feel for this former Sierra Leonean child soldier cloud my judgement of his memoir. It seems unbelievably curmudgeonly of me to judge this book harshly given its subject matter. I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry for what I am about to do. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. 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. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. “You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and became a soldier. ![]() Beah tells how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. The devastating story of war through the eyes of a child soldier.
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