Ishmael Beah’s Memoir as a Reflection of Society
Ishmael Beah is a writer from Sierra Leone and a human rights activist. He became famous for his extremely popular novel A Long Way Gone: A Memoir Of A Boy Soldier. The book was nominated for a Quill Award, an American literary award that was consumer driven, in 2007 and named one of the top ten nonfiction books in 2007 by Time magazine, ranking at number three. The book is a firsthand experience on the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone; Beah reflects the society of Sierra Leone from 1994 to 2002. Through a telling of his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, Beah gives an unflinching look into the conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s to early 2000s. During the election, Charles Taylor, a liberian politician, and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) interfered with the Joseph Momoh government (their leader at the time). The war lasted for eleven years and left over 50,000 people dead. During the first part of the war, the Revolutionary United Front (aka rebels) took city by city. That left civilians without homes or loved ones. Refugees would walk town by town until they felt that they were safe again. They were malnourished and had no idea where they were going “it was evident …show more content…
supposedly , they were supposed to be immune to bullets and the RUF were intimidated by Kamajor magic that it worked. The commander of the Kamajors is very religious and told civilians that “God would take care of the U.N. couldn't” (Junger n. pag). After eleven years of feuding, more than 100,000 people were killed, millions fled the country in response to violence. More than 5,000 kids were recruited as child soldiers, drugged, and forced to partake in crimes against humanity. Kids who were recruited as child soldiers were told to perform violent raids against their own villages in order to show their
Ishmael Beah is a writer from Sierra Leone and a human rights activist. He became famous for his extremely popular novel A Long Way Gone: A Memoir Of A Boy Soldier. The book was nominated for a Quill Award, an American literary award that was consumer driven, in 2007 and named one of the top ten nonfiction books in 2007 by Time magazine, ranking at number three. The book is a firsthand experience on the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone; Beah reflects the society of Sierra Leone from 1994 to 2002. Through a telling of his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, Beah gives an unflinching look into the conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s to early 2000s. During the election, Charles Taylor, a liberian politician, and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) interfered with the Joseph Momoh government (their leader at the time). The war lasted for eleven years and left over 50,000 people dead. During the first part of the war, the Revolutionary United Front (aka rebels) took city by city. That left civilians without homes or loved ones. Refugees would walk town by town until they felt that they were safe again. They were malnourished and had no idea where they were going “it was evident …show more content…
supposedly , they were supposed to be immune to bullets and the RUF were intimidated by Kamajor magic that it worked. The commander of the Kamajors is very religious and told civilians that “God would take care of the U.N. couldn't” (Junger n. pag). After eleven years of feuding, more than 100,000 people were killed, millions fled the country in response to violence. More than 5,000 kids were recruited as child soldiers, drugged, and forced to partake in crimes against humanity. Kids who were recruited as child soldiers were told to perform violent raids against their own villages in order to show their