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Ishmael Beah biography

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Ishmael Beah
© UNICEF/HQ02-0113/ Donna Decesare

Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah Biography

Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. In 2004 he graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in political science.

He is the author of Tomorrow and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Beah a member of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (CETO) at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and many other NGO panels on children affected by the war. His work has appeared in VespertinePress and LIT magazine. He lives in New York City.

Controversy
It was claimed that there was some inaccuracy in the events mentioned in Beah's book A Long Way Gone, mainly that Beah became a soldier in 1993 rather than 1995.

Ishmael Beah's website

This bio was last updated on 10/21/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Books by this Author

Books by Ishmael Beah at BookBrowse
Radiance of Tomorrow jacket A Long Way Gone jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Ishmael Beah but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Uwem Akpan

    Uwem Akpan

    Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He was ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    A Long Way Gone

    Try:
    Say You're One of Them
    by Uwem Akpan

  • Biyi Bandele

    Biyi Bandele

    Biyi Bandele was born in Nigeria in 1967. He has written plays for the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, screenplays for the BBC and has had five novels published. He was Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    A Long Way Gone

    Try:
    The King's Rifle
    by Biyi Bandele

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