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A Long Way Gone
- Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
- Narrated by: Ishmael Beah
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
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Publisher's summary
In A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story in his own words: how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. 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.
This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers.
Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. 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 it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.
This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
Critic reviews
“A Long Way Gone is one of the most important war stories of our generation. The arming of children is among the greatest evils of the modern world, and yet we know so little about it because the children themselves are swallowed up by the very wars they are forced to wage. Ishmael Beah has not only emerged intact from this chaos, he has become one of its most eloquent chroniclers. We ignore his message at our peril.” —Sebastian Junger, author of A Death in Belmont and A Perfect Storm
“This is a beautifully written book about a shocking war and the children who were forced to fight it. Ishmael Beah describes the unthinkable in calm, unforgettable language; his memoir is an important testament to the children elsewhere who continue to be conscripted into armies and militias.” —Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for general Nonfiction
“A Long Way Gone hits you hard in the gut with Sierra Leone's unimaginable brutality and then it touches your soul with unexpected acts of kindness. Ishmael Beah's story tears your heart to pieces and then forces you to put it back together again, because if Beah can emerge from such horror with his humanity in tact, it's the least you can do.” —Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Featured Article: The top 100 memoirs of all time
All genres considered, the memoir is among the most difficult and complex for a writer to pull off. After all, giving voice to your own lived experience and recounting deeply painful or uncomfortable memories in a way that still engages and entertains is a remarkable feat. These autobiographies, often narrated by the authors themselves, shine with raw, unfiltered emotion sure to resonate with any listener. But don't just take our word for it—queue up any one of these listens, and you'll hear exactly what we mean.
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Story
Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whispering the words to himself at night until one day a song was born. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. But the songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a Minneapolis housing project and on the factory floor until, with the death of Bee's mother, the songs leave him for good.
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Beautiful, full of sadness, power, and heart.
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By: Kao Kalia Yang
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mende Nazer tells the story of her kidnap, at age 12, from an idyllic life with her family in a village in Sudan, and being sold into slavery. Trafficked to Europe and the London home of a diplomat, Nazer escaped - only to find she had to fight for asylum.
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Heartbreaking dose of reality
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By: Mende Nazar, and others
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Fantastic story. Well read.
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Overall
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Story
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Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him.
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Beautiful example of magical realism.
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By: Wayétu Moore
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Christophe has been in the New World only a year when his native guides abandon him to flee their Iroquois pursuers. A Huron warrior and elder named Bird soon takes him prisoner, along with a young Iroquois girl, Snow Falls, whose family he has just killed, and holds them captive in his massive village. Champlain's Iron People have only recently begun trading with the Huron, who mistrust them as well as this Crow who has now trespassed onto their land; and her people, of course, have become the Huron's greatest enemy.
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Thoughtful and interesting, if not always gripping
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Halima Bashir was born into the Zaghawa tribe, whose customs have remained unchanged for centuries, in the remote western deserts of Sudan in the region of South Darfur. Halima's father named his daughter after the traditional medicine woman of the village, and she grew up in a happy and close-knit childhood environment. Her father became a wealthy man by his tribe's standards, so he could afford to send Halima to school and university. Halima went on to study medicine, and at 24 she returned to her tribe and began practicing as their first ever qualified doctor.
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A story that takes you there
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Stephen 'Pista' Nasser was 13 years old when the Nazis whisked him and his family away from their home in Hungary to Auschwitz. His memories of that terrifying experience are still vivid, and his love for his brother Andris still brings a husky tone to his voice when he remembers the terrible ordeal they endured together. Stephen's account of the Holocaust, told in the refreshingly direct and optimistic language of a young boy, will help every listener to understand that the Holocaust was real.
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my favorite I've read it 5 times
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The Lightless Sky
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In 2006, after his father was killed, Gulwali Passarlay was caught between the Taliban, who wanted to recruit him, and the Americans, who wanted to use him. To protect her son, Gulwali's mother sent him away. The search for safety would lead the 12-year-old across eight countries, from the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan through Iran and Europe to Britain. Over the course of 12 harrowing months, Gulwali endured imprisonment, hunger, cruelty, brutality, loneliness, and terror - and nearly drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
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A Face for Refugees
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Tugs at the heart strings
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American War
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Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.
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Best listen in years
- By odin on 04-08-17
By: Omar El Akkad
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What listeners say about A Long Way Gone
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- LeyC
- 12-26-16
Nothing Like It
I picked up this audiobook after discovering that my ancestors are from the Mende tribe of Sierra Leone. Wanting to hear what it is like there, I said let me give this story a shot (no pun intended). And wow. To hear the chronology of events that took place FROM the author himself. Ismael Beah does an incredible job of taking the listener through this emotional Rollercoaster. Job. Well. Done.
One day.... One day I will meet him and thank him in person. And another day, I will visit the land of my ancestors, Sierra Leone.
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- David
- 04-19-16
A long way gone = intense
Loved it. This was an amazing story, told firsthand by former child soldier Ishmael Bean. I would highly recommend this title. Now to start Beahs next title.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-15-16
it was great!
I loved that it was the actual author telling it in his accent. On some parts I could truly feel the emotion while he told his story
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- chemguy
- 12-07-18
hear the story from the man who lived it
With protagonist, narrator, and author all the same person, this human tragedy can't be missed.
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- AdinaZimsausa
- 03-18-19
Lost childhoods--so sad
Good narration and detailed report of young soldiers experience Left me with a deeper knowledge of conflict and tragedy in Sierra Leone
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- Beledigrrl
- 02-02-21
one of the best books I've ever read.
i first read this book for a school book report but didnt finish it. I finally was able to finish the book and its one of my favorites! Amazing job Mr. Beah!!
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- Melissa L. Cook
- 07-13-22
A Horrific Story of War in Africa
Taken on a life journey of a child soldier, I was horrified at the transformation of an innocent child who danced to his cassette tapes with his friends to a heartless soldier willing to take a life without much thought and at such a young age. I was angry when I learned he had a home in my country; how could our immigration system let in someone with his past to live in our neighborhoods? I feared for my countrymen with his presence. I continued to listen to the story, disgusted by the behavior of the boy soldiers and their treatment of people who were helping them. I tried to put myself in their shoes. Would I be different under the same circumstances? I would be, I thought, but how would I know? I continued to listen.
The boy soldier is reintroduced to extended family and given a second chance at his childhood. Still I wondered. It wasn’t until he made the effort to escape being forced to serve in the military again and his concern for how his foster mother might fear him, that I believed he might have changed.
There were times I wondered about the truthfulness of this story because I felt there were details left out to intentionally improve the author’s image given the gravity of the crimes against innocent people that he committed. In my research, I discovered there are questions about the details but more along the timeline. I still believe there was more to the story of what his group of soldiers did to people than he shared. The whole thing breaks my heart. I think of the innocent people caught in the war, raped and murdered for their food and of the lost innocence of the children forced to fight to survive and who ultimately grew to make a game of taking other people’s lives. I feel extremely fortunate not to have faced anything like this in my own life, so how can I judge without the experience?
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- Shauna
- 12-01-23
Ishmael Beah is AMAZING
What I loved the most is the story made me feel a deep sense of understanding even though I have never gone though anything like this.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-12-24
Simplistic story telling.
It placed me in the shoes of the author, surviving a horrific experience. A page turner from the start.
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- Kathleen A. McCabe
- 07-26-18
expertly written and narrated
beautifully told story of a difficult subject showing love and loss and terror and healing.
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