Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Ishmael Beah thought he had seen enough miracles in a lifetime when UN officials helped him move at 17 to America, far from the African civil war where he had been a 13-year-old soldier. But his good fortune was only beginning.
Not only did Beah find a publisher for his subsequent book about his childhood, A Long Way Gone, but the memoir attracted so much media attention that an excerpt became a New York Times magazine cover story. Now, with Starbucks8217; decision to promote and sell his book in more than 6,000 stores, the 26-year-old author has been thrust into the role of a spokesman for child soldiers worldwide.
8220;It hit me out of the blue,8221; he said. 8220;I didn8217;t even know Starbucks sold books.8221; The selection has given Beah a forum to talk about the Sierra Leone civil war, which few Americans understand.
So far, A Long Way Gone has sold more than 37,000 copies in the chain8217;s stores, according to Starbucks. The coffee chain has also announced that it will donate 2 from each copy sold to the US fund for UNICEF with a minimum contribution of 100,000.
Sarah Crichton, who published the memoir under her imprint at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, began editing Beah8217;s book as scandal was engulfing James Frey, the best-selling author who later confessed that he had made up key facts in his memoir. The publisher asked Beah to vouch for the accuracy of his book. Beah assured her that he had a 8220;photographic memory8221;. He reminded her that he had grown up in a culture with a long-standing oral tradition.
That childhood ended abruptly when civil war came to his village in 1993. Beah, then 12, barely escaped the bands of rebel soldiers who wiped out his family and fled into the countryside with other boys. They fell into the hands of government troops, who taught them how to kill and ordered them to seek revenge from the rebels. The boys were given AK-47s, amphetamines and endless doses of 8220;brown brown8221;, a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder, to keep them fighting for days at a time.
Beah8217;s life changed abruptly two years later, when his commanders gave him to UNICEF workers. He was taken to a rehabilitation camp, where he was weaned off drugs. Several years later, in 1998, he moved to New York city and began again. 8220;I8217;m like any other 26-year-old,8221; said Beah with a laugh, minutes before his debut. 8220;A 26-year-old with a Starbucks tour.8221;
Josh Getlin
