Ishmael Beah

Reading by Ishmael Beah in Cologne (2016)

Ishmael Beah (* 1980 in Mogbwemo ) is a Sierra Leonean author .

Beah became known for his work Return to Life. I was a child soldier (originally: A Long Way Gone - Memoirs of a Boy Soldier ), in which he shared his experiences as a child soldier in his home country, as well as his rehabilitation in an institution for former child soldiers and his fresh start in the United States portrays.

Live and act

In 1991 the civil war broke out in Sierra Leone , in which Beah's parents and two brothers were killed. Ishmael fought by himself on the run from the fighting until he was finally recruited as a child soldier by a unit of the Sierra Leonean National Army at the age of 13. After almost three years of service in the army, he was released from the army at the instigation of UNICEF and was sent to a rehabilitation camp for former child soldiers. The patient care of the supervisors there helped him over time to process his war experiences and learn to live with his past. At the United Nations ' First International Children's Parliament in 1996, Ishmael spoke to children from 23 nations about the civil war in Sierra Leone as the representative of his country. When fighting broke out again in Sierra Leone just a few months later, Ishmael left his home. In the USA, he attended the United Nations International School in Manhattan and graduated from Oberlin College in political science in 2004 .

During his time in the government army of Sierra Leone, Beah "killed too many people to count". He and other soldiers his age were given drugs, preferably marijuana, amphetamines and brown-brown , a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder, without which Beah said he would not have been capable of such acts of violence. In addition to the drugs, the pressure exerted by the army ensured that thoughts of escape were suppressed from the outset. "The only chance you had was to stay," said Beah. "If you even thought of escaping, you were as good as dead."

During an appearance on the American television program The Daily Show on February 14, 2007, Beah speculated that returning to a civilized world would be far more difficult than becoming a child soldier. To let dehumanize children (Dehumanizing children) is relatively simple. When Beah was freed from the army by UNICEF in 1996, he too initially resisted forced demobilization. After some time at UNICEF, he confided in a nurse who could help him get through this difficult time. She recognized his interest in rap music and was able to build a bridge to the time before the war. Little by little he learned to talk about his feelings and to accept sentences like "It was not your fault".

UNICEF brought Beah to his uncle in Freetown in 1996 , where he went to school again and was allowed to speak to the United Nations in New York that same year . During this visit to the USA he also met Laura Simms, to whom he fled after Freetown was taken by the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front and who is now his foster mother.

"If I decided to feel guilty for what I did, I would want to be dead," said Beah. "I know that I've been given a second life and I'm just trying to have fun, be happy and make the most of my life."

During his time as a student at Oberlin College, he actively campaigned against the abuse of children as soldiers. He spoke to the United Nations and met with influential politicians such as Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela . Beah currently lives in Brooklyn and works for the Human Rights Watch Children's Division Advisory Committee .

In 2014 he was a member of the jury for the award The Extraordinary Book of the children and youth program of the Berlin International Literature Festival .

Works

• Little Family: A Novel. Riverhead Books, USA 2020, ISBN 0593189280 .
• Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel. Sarah Crichton Books, USA 2014, ISBN 978-0374246020 .
• Return to life. I was a child soldier. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38264-7 .

Awards and nominations

• 2008: Nomination - Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award for A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier . Douglas & McIntyre 2006.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ishmael Beah in the catalog of the German National Library
• ALongWayGone.com - Official site of the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
• Video: Interview from The Daily Show , February 14, 2007.
• Ishmael Beah at Unicef Voices of Youth

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} UNICEF , Youth leadership profiles . Retrieved February 15, 2007.
2. ↑ ^{a b} James Pitkin , Willamette Week, Ishmael Beah - An ex-child soldier's trip from Sierra Leone's war to a Starbucks bookshelf ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 14, 2007. Retrieved February 15, 2007.  
3. ↑ ^{a b} Alissa Swango , NYC24, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism , A Child Soldier Grows Up ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 2006. Retrieved February 15, 2007.  
4. ^ The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. February 14, 2007, accessed December 19, 2010 . 
5. ^ ^{A b} Andrew Gumbel , The New Zealand Herald, Long march to normal life for a former child soldier , January 24, 2007. Retrieved February 16, 2007.
6. ↑ Ishmael Beah - international literature festival berlin. Retrieved March 6, 2017 .