Ishmael Beah’s ‘A Long Way Gone’ Is ‘A Long Way From Truth,’ Sierra Leonean Magazine Says in a Report That Raises ‘Serious Doubts’ About Its Story

Anyone who still believes that Ishmael Beah was boy soldier may have doubts after reading the first comprehensive investigation by a Sierra Leonean journalist of the story told in A Long Way Gone, a book billed by its publisher as “a memoir” of Beah’s years as a fighter in his government’s army. Muctaru Wurie investigated Beah’s claims for a report published in the quarterly Sierra Eye and elsewhere. He concluded that A Long Way Gone is “a long way from truth.”

Wurie based his report on an analysis of the book and on interviews with experts on the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, including representatives of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, founded to bring “reconciliation and healing” to victims of the conflict. Beah says he was one of those victims and, based on that claim, and has had a lucrative writing and speaking career in the United States and elsewhere.

Sierra Eye has published a long list of mistakes and other disturbing flaws in A Long Way Gone that have created “serious doubts” among Sierra Leoneans about the book and add to and deepen the questions raised in the Australian by Shelley Gare, David Nason and Peter Wilson. In the West African magazine, Wurie says that Beah describes some events that “never happened.” A list of links to other articles that have challenged or raised questions related to Beah’s claims appears at the end of this post.

Wurie tried to speak with Beah or a representative of his publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, but hit the stone wall faced by Graham Rayman of the Village Voice and others when he sought answers to questions about the book.

The most serious problems found by Wurie include:

Ishmael Beah says that when he was in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in May 1997: “Someone came on the radio and announced himself as the new president of Sierra Leone. His name, he said, was Johnny Paul Koroma, and he was the leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council …”

Muctaru Wurie says in Sierra Eye: “ … everyone who was here at that time knew that what was described as the most embarrassing coup broadcast of all time was delivered by the late Corporal [Tamba] Gborie, who was later convicted of treason and shot by firing squad.”

Lansana Gberie, a Sierra Leonean scholar and journalist who has written regularly for Africa Week other publications, confirms that Gborie did the broadcast in his book A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone (Indiana Universiy Press, 2005).

Ishmael Beah says that after he arrived at a UNICEF camp for former child soldiers in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1996, a fight broke out between those who had fought for the government and for rebels of Revolutionary United Front (RUF): “Six people were killed: two on our side and four on the rebel side; and several were wounded, including two of the men who had brought us [to the camp]. The military ambulances took off, wailing into the still newborn night with the dead and wounded.”

Muctaru Wurie says in Sierra Eye: “This never happened. I checked newspaper clippings at the Sierra Leone section library at the renowned Fourah Bay College and spoke to many journalists and NGO officials at the time, they all said they had no doubts such an incident never occurred.

“The fact that Ishmael wilfully omitted the name or location of the said centre in Freetown raised further doubts about an event no one here seems to recall.”

Wurie’s contention that the camp fight “never happened” meshes with a UNICEF  statement to the Village Voice that it couldn’t confirm that the fight occurred.

Ishmael Beah says: “The first time I was touched by war I was twelve. It was in January of 1993.”

Alhaji Samura, who was a transcriber for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is quoted as saying in Sierra Eye: “I have read reviews of A Long Way Gone and from what I can see, the book appears to be fictional. I can’t recall a time when someone gave a testimony that they saw the national army recruiting children openly in a town to fight along with them before 1997.”

Ishmael Beah says: “One evening, a neighbor who lived a few doors down from my uncle’s house was listening to a pirate radio station that accused the new government of crimes against civilians. A few minutes later, a truck full of soldiers stopped in front of the man’s house, dragged him, his wife, and his two older sons outside, shot them, and kicked their bodies into the nearby gutter.”

Muctaru Wurie says in Sierra Eye that the incident “never happened”:

“The incident that actually happened (but not mentioned in Ishmael’s book) and caught the attention of the public and international media was the one concerning the woman at Kissy who was listening to FM 98.1 and was later confronted by a soldier whom she defiantly challenged before she was shot. It was the talk of the town and several people flocked to see the dead woman lay on the ground bleeding profusely.

“An incident whereby a whole family was massacred would have raised more public notice –if it did happen. To ascertain this, I called former minister of information, Dr Julius Spencer who was the then head of FM 98.1. He told me clearly that there was not a time he recalled anything like that happened. Spencer, who also happens to be one of the leading literature scholars in the country, said though he has not read Ishmael’s book, the reviews he read makes him doubt if Ishmael depicted the truth in his work.”

Ishmael Beah says that when he left Sierra Leone for Guinea after being removed from the fighting: “The immigration officers were asking for three hundred leones, almost two months’ pay, to put a departure stamp on passports.”

Muctaru Wurie says in Sierra Eye: “The fact is that the average monthly salary was far above that. Le 300 could only get you a pint of soft drink by the time. In fact, a US dollar is exchanged for around Le 800.”

Wurie said he wanted to ask Beah or his publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, how “someone who claims to be a native of the country, and also participated in the war, could have gotten it so wrong on so many aspects.” But he hit a stone wall at the firm that issued the book.

“I called twice and mailed them thrice but I only got a promise that they will get back to me which they never did,” he writes. “In fact, I’m still waiting today.”

You may also want to read these articles that raise questions about A Long Way Gone:

“Boy Soldier of Fortune,” the Village Voice, March 18, 2008.

“Ishmael Beah Foundation Didn’t File Tax Returns for 3 Years, IRS Says,”  One-Minute Book Reviews, April 8, 2012.

“UNICEF Can’t Confirm Beah’s Camp Brawl Claim,” the Village Voice, March 19, 2008.

“An Open Letter to Ishmael Beah About Questions Recently Raised About His Memoir, ‘A Long Way Gone,’ by Reporters for the Australian,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Jan. 24, 2o08.

“Ishmael Beah Says He Was Shot ‘Three Times in My Left Foot’ But Suffered No Serious Damage,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Feb. 12, 2008.

“More Questions About Ishmael Beah’s ‘A Long Way Gone,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Jan. 29, 2008.

“Ishmael Beah Ducks Question About Whether He Used Composite Characters or Passed Off Others’ Experiences as His Own,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Apr. 18, 2008.

“Wikipedia Claims Laura Simms Is Ishmael Beah’s ‘Foster Mother,’ Not His ‘Adoptive Mother,’ As He Claims,” One-Minute Book Reviews, March 11, 2008.

“Ishmael Beah’s Wikipedia Entry – a Point-by-Point Response for Reporters, Producers and Book Groups and Others Seeking Facts About the Author of ‘A Long Way Gone,’” One-Minute Book Reviews, Feb. 14, 2008.

“Ex-child soldier’s literary best seller is ‘factually flawed,'” The Observer (UK), Jan. 20, 2008.

“School Report Shoots Holes in Child Soldier’s Bloody Tale,” the Sunday Times (London), Feb. 3, 2008.

“Australian Newspaper Questions Ishmael Beah’s Memory,” GalleyCat, Jan. 21, 2008.

“The OTHER Book About Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Feb. 4, 2008.

“Ishmael Beah’s Parents May Be Alive and ‘No One Knows Where They Are,’ Wikipedia Says — Entry Contradicts Author’s Statements in the New York Times and Elsewhere,” One-Minute Book Reviews, March 10, 2008.

“Does the Cover of ‘A Long Way’ Gone Show a Soldier in Niger or Another African Country Instead of Sierra Leone? Why Isn’t the Location Identified?,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Feb. 27, 2008.

“Out of the Mouth of a Babe Soldier” (Quotes from Ishmael Beah’s book and interviews that appear contradictory), One-Minute Book Reviews, Feb. 5, 2008.

“Whitewash on ABC’s ‘Nightline’ — Cynthia McFadden Wimps Out in Interviewing Ishmael Beah About the Truthfulness of his ‘A Long Way Gone,'” One-Minute Book Reviews, Aug. 7, 2008.

“Ishmael Beah May Have Had ‘Nagging Doubts’ About His Story, Wikipedia Reports — A World Exclusive for the Online Encyclopedia? Or Was It Sucker-Punched?” One-Minute Book Reviews, March 2, 2008.

“New Paperback Edition Doesn’t Ease Concerns About ‘A Long Way Gone’ — Questions Reporters, Producers and You, the Reader Should Ask Ishmael Beah,” One-Minute Book Reviews, Aug. 3, 2008.

“Chasing Ishmael – Truth, Racism, the US Media and Blockbuster Publishing,” The Sydney Papers, Autumn 2008.

The links to the articles below in the Australian have expired. Many of the points they make are covered in the articles listed above:

“Beah’s Credibility a Long Way Gone,” the Australian, Feb. 2, 2008.

“Ishmael Beah’s Flaws Poetic License,” the Australian, Jan. 21, 2008.

“Web of Facts Unravel Child Soldier’s Tale,” the Australian, January 21, 2008.

“Child Soldier Questions Beah’s Tale,” the Australian, January 25, 2008.

“US Critics ‘Wanted to Believe’ Child Soldier’s Tale,” the Australian, Jan. 30, 2008.

Janice Harayda is a novelist and award-winning journalist who has been the book editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland and has written for many American newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune. She is a former vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle who lives in New Jersey.

www.janiceharayda.com and www.twitter.com/janiceharayda

Late Night With Jan Harayda – What Sarah Palin Has in Common With Ishmael Beah

Watching how tightly the McCain campaign has controlled the media access to Sarah Palin, I thought: Where have I seen something like this before? Answer: the publicity campaign for A Long Way Gone, which Ishmael Beah continues to bill as a memoir of his years as a child soldier despite serious challenges to the credibility of many of his claims. Farrar, Straus & Giroux has done with Beah what McCain has done with Palin: Restrict speeches and interviews severely, offering them mainly to safe audiences and journalists. Beah has never been interviewed by an American broadcaster who has asked tough questions and followed up on them as directly as Charles Gibson and Katie Couric did with Palin. Cynthia McFadden – one of the few who had a chance to do it – wimped out unabashedly in her interview with Beah earlier this year on Nightline. blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/08/nightlines_bad.php.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

Whitewash on ABC’s ‘Nightline’ – Cynthia McFadden Wimps Out in Interviewing Ishmael Beah About the Truthfulness of His ‘A Long Way Gone’

Is it a coincidence that Cynthia McFadden’s recent Nightline whitewash of the questions about the credibility of A Long Way Gone (a Sarah Crichton book) came so soon after she listed Apples and Oranges (a Sarah Crichton book) first among her favorite books of the summer at www.wowowow.com/post/cynthia-mcfadden-my-stepsons-book-69835? Or is this another example of literary backscratching? As we try to sort it out, Graham Rayman has posted a good analysis of what went wrong with McFadden’s timid and one-sided Aug. 5 story on Ishmael Beah, who says he spent more than two years child soldier in Sierra Leone (“Nightline’s Bad Journalism 101”) blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/08/nightlines_bad.php. You’ll find questions she could have asked here www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/08/03.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

New Paperback Edition Doesn’t Ease Concerns About ‘A Long Way Gone’ — Questions Reporters, Producers and You, the Reader, Should Ask Ishmael Beah

The publisher has replaced an error-riddled map, but many questions about credibility remain

An altered map appears in the new paperback edition of A Long Way Gone that went on sale in some bookstores over the weekend – a tacit acknowledgement that the original had “seriously misleading errors,” as the Australian reported earlier this year. The map changes the shape of the journey taken by author Ishmael Beah, who says he was forced to serve as a child soldier after fleeing his village during the civil war in Sierra Leone.

But the paperback edition doesn’t ease the concerns about the overall credibility of the book, which have intensified since the hardcover version came out in early 2007. UNICEF said recently that it can’t confirm Beah’s claim that six people died in a fight in one of its rehabilitation camps in Sierra Leone, though the agency says it still believes he was a child soldier.

Here are some of the questions that the paperback edition fails to answer and that reporters, producers and others should ask Beah:

1. You refused to answer the question when a Village Voice reporter asked if you had used composite characters in your book or passed off others’ experiences as your own. Once again: Did you use composite characters or pass off others’ experiences as your own?

2. The cover of A Long Way Gone www.alongwaygone.com shows a child soldier dressed not in the colors of Sierra Leone but of nearby Niger, which also had a civil war in the 1990s. Where was the cover photo taken?

3. Do you still believe, as you claim in your book, that your parents are dead? Why?

4. You say that you concluded your parents were dead after a man named Gasemu — “who used to be one of the notorious single men in my town”– told you that your parents had been staying in a charred house and you saw ashes there. Gasemu does not sound like an impeccable source. Did you have other sources for where your parents were staying?

5. When you were told later that your parents couldn’t be found, why did you assume they had died and not gone into hiding or fled the country?

6. Do you still believe, as you claim in your book, that your two brothers are dead? Why?

7. You say you have learned “to forgive” yourself for the sadistic atrocities you inflicted on others. For example, you say you killed one man by slitting his throat with a bayonet. And you say you killed six prisoners this way: “ … they were all lined up, six of them, with their hands tied. I shot them on their feet and watched them suffer for an entire day before finally shooting them in the head so they would stop crying.” Should the families of your victims forgive you?

8. You met regularly with your editor, Sarah Crichton, while writing the book. How did that process work? After you met with Crichton, would she write up what you said and show you what she wrote? Or would you write up something and show her?

9. The dust jacket of the hardcover edition of A Long Way Gone says the world has about 300,000 child soldiers. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says “it not possible to give a global figure for the number of child soldiers” www.child-soldiers.org. The steering committee for the coalition consists of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, where you serve on an advisory committee. Why did you quote prominently a figure the coalition appears not to support? Have you cited the number in speeches or interviews? If your publisher used the number without your consent, do you repudiate its use? Was it a mistake to use it? Why was this figure removed from the paperback edition?

10. Laura Simms calls you her “adopted son” on her Web site www.laurasimms.com. Similarly, you referred to her as your “adoptive mother” in Publishers Weekly. Has Simms formally adopted you? If not, has she filed any petitions to adopt you that have not yet been approved?

11. Wikipedia says Simms is not your adoptive mother but your “foster mother” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Beah. And the Wikipedia “Discussion” page for your entry suggests that Farrar, Straus & Giroux has protested other aspects of your listing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ishmael_Beah. (“The subject’s publisher has registered disquiet with the weight we give The Australian’s account here …”). Has your publisher protested the use of “foster mother” instead of “adopted mother”? Why or why not?

12. You say that six people died and several were wounded in a fight at a UNICEF camp that brought military and national police and ambulances to the scene. UNICEF has said it can’t confirm this. Can you explain why there might be no record of a brawl involving two police forces, health care workers and a United Nations agency, and all the people taking part in or watching the fight? If you made public the name of the camp location, others might come forward to confirm your account. Can you tell us the name of the camp? Or where it was situated? blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/03/unicef_cannot_c.php

13. Some of the concerns about the credibility of your book might go away if reporters could interview some of your fellow soldiers, whom you identify only by their first names. Can you provide few of their last names or other identifying details, such as where they lived, that could help reporters track them down?

14. What is your legal status in the United States? Are you a permanent resident or citizen? If you are a permanent resident, have you applied for U.S. citizenship? If you are a U.S. citizen, do you hold dual citizenship in Sierra Leone or another country?

15. Wikipedia lists your birthday as Nov. 23, 1980 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Beah. Is this correct? If so, what evidence exists for it? Do you have a birth certificate or are you relying on your memory?

16. The map in the paperback edition of your book gives journey a different shape than the hardcover edition did. Is the new map accurate? Which of the two maps represents your journey?

17. One-Minute Book Reviews has repeatedly questioned a scene in which you say that you and your friends were close enough to the rebels t hear them clearly and observe small gestures such as nods, yet they couldn’t see you. How far were you from the rebels?

18. On January 24 this site had a post entitled “An Open Letter to Ishmael Beah.” You never answered this. But the post drew comments from someone named “Syn” who seemed be claiming to know your motives. Did you or someone in your family leave these comments? Have you ever left an anonymous comment on a blog? www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/

19. How did you continue your rehabilitation after you came to the U.S.? Did you have psychotherapy, and did it help you? If you don’t want to answer this question, can you explain why you wouldn’t want to answer a question that could help former child soldiers?

20. You say in A Long Way Gone that you have a “photographic memory.” Were any events described in the book based on what some people call “recovered memories” or memories retrieved through hypnosis?

You’ll find more questions in the reading group guide to A Long Way Gone posted on One-Minute Book Reviews on March 5, 2007 www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/03/05. The official publication date of the paperback edition of the book is Tuesday, August 5.

Janice Harayda www.janiceharayda.com is a novelist and award-winning journalist who has been the book columnist for Glamour, the book critic for the Plain Dealer and a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle www.bookcritics.org.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.twitter.com/janiceharayda

Ishmael Beah Ducks Question About Whether He Used Composite Characters or Passed Off Others’ Experiences as His Own

For weeks Ishmael Beah and his handlers have been attacking the professionalism of Australian reporters who raised questions about the credibility of A Long Way Gone. Now Beah has used a similar tactic on the gifted Village Voice reporter Graham Rayman, who first wrote about the controversy in the March 18 issue of the alternate weekly www.villagevoice.com/news/0812,boy_soldier,381308,1.html.

Rayman caught up with the author when he spoke about his book at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. He asked Beah, who claims to have spent more than two years as a child solider in Sierra Leone, if he had used composite characters or taken events that had happened to others and presented them as his own.

“You should ask Peter Wilson that question. I’m sure he gave you all these questions,” Beah said, according to a story in the April 15 issue of the Voice. Beah was referring to a reporter for the Australian who visited Sierra Leone and could find no evidence of a fatal brawl at a UNICEF camp described in A Long Way Gone.

Rayman responded in the article:

“Beah was wrong in assuming that the questions were fed to the Voice by Wilson, but his response suggested that he is flustered by the doubts that have been raised about his book.”

Here’s my question for Beah: If he didn’t use composite characters or pass off others’ experiences as his own, why didn’t he settle the matter right then by saying “no” instead of insulting Rayman’s professionalism by implying that he couldn’t have thought of his questions on his own?

To read Rayman’s April 15 story on Beah’s talk at John Jay, Google “Rayman + Beah + John Jay.” [I will insert a working link here as soon as I can.] Rayman asked Beah about the fatal brawl that he claims occurred at a UNICEF camp and Beah replied cryptically, “There was so much that happened in the war that was not recorded,” but again offered no proof that the incident occurred. I am quoted in Rayman’s earlier story in the controversy.

(c) 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Ishmael Beah’s Parents May Be Alive and ‘No One Knows Where They Are,’ Wikipedia Says — Entry Contradicts Author’s Statements in the New York Times and Elsewhere — Has the Site Been Gulled?

[Update, 11:10 p.m., March 10: Wikipedia has deleted the sentence saying that Beah’s parents may be alive that is discussed in the post below. But it’s war over there at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Beah, so don’t expect this to last. And the entry still contains material that directly contradicts statements made by Beah or others. I’ll try to comment briefly on the mess the next day or so. Jan]

More bizarre changes in the entry for the author of A Long Way Gone, who claims he was a child soldier in Sierra Leone for more than two years

What is going on with the entry for Ishmael Beah on Wikipedia? The online encyclopedia is now saying that Beah’s parents may not be dead. Instead his parents “left” — whether they left their village or country is unclear — after war broke out in Sierra Leone: “No one knows where they are now.”

This statement contradicts an excerpt from A Long Way Gone in the New York Times Magazine in which Beah said his parents and brother were dead:

“After I discovered that my parents and two brothers had been killed, I felt even more lost and worthless in a world that had become pregnant with fear and suspicion as neighbor turned against neighbor and child against parent.”

The latest change on Wikipedia also contradicts other statements Beah has made and entries about him that have appeared on the encyclopedia for more than six months. It further implies that he had one brother when he says in his book that he had two.

Some of these changes are a baffling. Slate says Beah’s friends and foes have made competing changes in his Wikipedia listing www.slate.com/id/2185928/. But you can’t always tell which camp has made them.

You might assume that the latest change, suggesting that Beah’s parents might be alive, had come from a detractor who wanted to discredit the author’s repeated claims that his family is dead. But it could also have come from a friend who knew that Beah’s parents or a brother might be about to come forward – an ally who wanted to help Beah backpedal and who had leaked material, the way political campaigns do, as a trial balloon. The idea that Beah’s parents might be alive appeared on Wikipedia three days ago and, because anybody can edit its entries, his PR team has apparently allowed it to remain in place.

In either case, why does Wikipedia keep allowing the site to be used like this?

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Ishmael Beah May Have Had ‘Nagging Doubts’ About His Story, Wikipedia Reports — A World Exclusive for the Online Encyclopedia? — Or Was It Sucker-Punched?

[Update at 11:30 p.m., March 9, 2008: Another bizarre change the entry for Beah — this one suggesting that his parents may not be dead! All along Beah been claiming to be an orphan. This change in the entry requires a separate post, which will be dated March 9 or 10 depending on how long it takes to write. Jan]

[Update at 1:30 a.m. March 7, 2008: Since this post appeared, Wikipedia has removed some of the editorializing, speculation and other elements of Beah’s entry that appeared to violate its own policies. But if the recent pattern holds, these will soon reappear. In any case, the entry is outdated, inconsistent with published reports and an unreliable source of information. For example, Wikipedia refers to Laura Simms as Beah’s “foster mother.” Beah refers to her as his “adoptive mother.” Similar problems occur throughout the entry. Jan]

The reference site again abandons neutrality and editorializes about the bestselling author and this time speculates about the mental state of the man who says he was a child soldier

By Janice Harayda

Ishmael Beah may have had “nagging doubts” about parts of his controversial A Long Way Gone, Wikipedia reports. The free online encyclopedia makes this startling assertion in its March 2 entry on the author who claims to have been a child soldier for two years in Sierra Leone en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Beah.

The Wikipedia statement, if true, would appear to be either a world exclusive for the popular reference site or evidence that it has been sucker-punched. Beah has not publicly admitted to having such “nagging doubts.” He says in A Long Way Gone that he has a “photographic memory.” And after questions arose about the credibility of his book, he released a statement that said, “Sad to say, my story is all true” www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6524214.html.

Wikpedia speculates about Beah’s state of mind in a section of his entry called “Credibility Controversy.” The section deals with articles in the Australian that have made a persuasive case that Beah’s village was attacked in 1995, not in 1993 as he suggests, and that he could not been a soldier for more than a few months. Wikipedia speculates: “Beah perhaps believed to the best of his memory, events were in 1993; but was aware of a few nagging doubts, so could not commit 100% to that date.” Or perhaps the author of that ungrammatical comment hopes you won’t remember that Beah said as recently as January: “I am right about my story. This is not something one gets wrong.”

That’s not the only place in the Beah’s entry where Wikipedia contines the editorializing discussed in a Feb. 13 post on One-Minute Book Reviews www.oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/. Some biased comments were removed after that post appeared.

But Wikipedia has added a long new section of editorializing (beginning “However, there is …”) that attempts to justify inconsistencies in A Long Way Gone in ways neither Beah nor his publisher has done. This section ends with this campaign rhetoric by the online encyclopedia:

“In the large scheme of things, fixing a precise year is perhaps not that important. The main issue is child soldiering. Beah clearly went through horrendous experiences, and it probably makes little difference whether they were spread over a few months or longer.”

This is not a neutral statement. It is a further attempt to deflect attention from the credibility of Beah’s account by focusing on child soldiers in general. Who says that “the main issue is child soldiers”? Why isn’t the main issue the truth? Or respect for the nearly 700,000 people bought A Long Way Gone and deserve better answers than they have received from Beah and his publisher about what it contains?

Child soldiering is a tragedy. But legitimate questions have been raised about survivors’ accounts of tragedies from the Holocaust to the Sept. 11 attacks. And some accounts have been revealed to have flaws ranging from mild inaccuracies to sweeping fabrications.

If questions were raised about a Holocaust or 9/11 memoir, would Wikipedia editorialize that “the main issue is that 6 million Jews died” or “the main issue is that the U.S. was attacked”? Simplistic arguments like these insult thoughtful and intelligent adults who are capable or recognizing that great as a tragedy may be, any individual account of it may have serious flaws. And it’s a mystery why Wikipedia keeps allowing such editorializing to appear in Beah’s entry.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Does the Cover of ‘A Long Way’ Gone Show a Soldier in Niger or Another African Country Instead of Sierra Leone? Why Isn’t the Location Identified?

Seeing red on the dust jacket of Ishmael Beah’s controversial book

Does anything strike you as odd about the photo on the cover of A Long Way Gone, the book that Ishmael Beah bills as a memoir of his years as a child solider in Sierra Leone? For months the picture puzzled me: Why was the young solider wearing a T-shirt in a shade of orange-red so bright, it would make him an easy target for an enemy?

The book says only that the picture was taken by Michael Kamber www.kamberphoto.com and came from the Polaris image bank www.polarisimages.com. And at first I suspected that an art director had changed the original color of the T-shirt to a bright orange-red so the cover would stand out more at stores.

But the more I looked at the cover, the more questions I had: Why hasn’t the young man’s T-shirt faded when his flip-flops are so tattered? Where was the picture taken? If it shows Sierra Leone, why doesn’t the cover say so?

It occurred to me that the soldier might be wearing an orange-red T-shirt for the same nationalistic reasons that the Marines wear their blue, white and red dress uniforms. But the colors of Sierra Leone flag don’t include orange or red – they’re blue, green and white. And the colors of another West African country, Niger, are the colors of the young soldier’s T-shirt and flip-flops – dark orange and green. Soldiers in Niger seized control of the government in 1996 after the ouster of the president Mahamane Ousmane, and Human Rights Watch has called on both government and rebel forces to end abuses against civilians that have occurred in a more recent conflict www.hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/19/niger17623.htm.

Publishers don’t have to tell you more about stock photos than Beah’s book does. Still, wouldn’t you like know how this one found its way onto the cover of A Long Way Gone?

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

Rating the Cover of ‘A Long Way Gone’ – Tomorrow on One-Minute Book Reviews

Update, 5 p.m. Yes, I still plan to rate the cover today, Wednesday. The post should be up in an hour or so. Thanks for your patience. Jan

You could argue that the cover of A Long Way Gone doesn’t matter, given all the other concerns that have been raised about the credibility of this book by a man who claims to have spent two years as a child soldier in Africa. But book covers always matter in the sense that what you wear on a job interview matters. They’re part of what’s become known in the age of Facebook as “impression management.” So tomorrow One-Minute Book Reviews will consider the cover of A Long Way Gone in the next of its occasional series of posts that rate book covers on their artistry and accuracy in representing the text. You’ll find other posts in the “Book Covers” category at right. This site welcomes comments from booksellers, librarians, graphic designers and others whose perspectives on book covers may differ from those of literary critics.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Ishmael Beah’s Wikipedia Entry – A Point-by-Point Response for Reporters, Producers, Book Groups and Others Seeking Facts About the Author of ‘A Long Way Gone’

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has an entry on Ishmael Beah that may mislead reporters, producers and others seeking facts about the author of A Long Way Gone. This post is an attempt to clarify some of the statements that may cause confusion. It may be updated to deal with others.

Wikipedia says:
“He now considers his foster mother, Laura Simms, his mother.”

Others say:
Ishmael Beah says Laura Simms is “my adoptive mother.”
“Ishmael Beah Takes a Public Stand,” by Michael Coffey, Publishers Weekly Jan. 21, 2008. www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6524214.html.

Laura Simms’s Web site refers to “her adopted son Ishmael Beah.” www.laurasimms.com.

Wikipedia says:
“He and other soldiers smoked marijuana and sniffed amphetamines and ‘brown-brown’, a mix of cocaine and gunpowder.”

Others say:
Jon Stewart said,while questioning Beah on the Daily Show on February 14, 2007, that the drugs included crystal meth. Beah did not correct him and appeared to nod www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=82274&title=ishmael-beah.

Wikipedia says:
“Beah currently works for the Human Rights Watch Children’s Division Advisory Committee, lives in Brooklyn, and is considering attending graduate school.”

Others say:
On Nov. 20, 2007 Beah was appointed the UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War. www.unicef.org/people/media_41827.html.

Janice Harayda is an award-winning journalist who has been the book editor of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, and a vice-president of the National Book Critics Circle.

© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
http://www.janiceharayda com.