Ishmael Beah Denies Allegations of Factual Errors in Bestselling Book

Posted on January 22, 2008

Ishmael Beah and his publisher are under fire for alleged factual inaccuracies in his book about his time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war, A Long Way Gone. An Australian newspaper said Beah's dates don't add up and that he couldn't have spent three years as a soldier.

"I am right about the dates. This is not something one gets wrong," he said in a letter to the editor of The Australian released through his publisher yesterday. Beah's publisher, Sarah Crichton, also stood by the accuracy of his book, A Long Way Gone, in which he says he hid from brutal rebels for nine to 10 months and then spent more than two years as a child soldier who was fed drugs and trained to kill.
"I have met many people who knew Mr Beah in Sierra Leone, and who have corroborated his story," Ms Crichton said in her own letter. "When Mr Beah says, as he adamantly does, that the dates in his book are correct, we have absolutely every reason to believe that this is the case." Contacted later by telephone in New York, Ms Crichton said she could not discuss the issue until after the Martin Luther King long weekend in the US, and that Beah was unavailable because he was travelling in Europe.
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Some 650,000 copies of his book are in print and Beah, who lives in New York, has become the world's most prominent spokesman for child soldiers. The Australian investigated the dates and confirmed the discrepancy while at the same time disproving claims by a man in Beah's home village of Mogbwemo that he was Beah's father. Beah's parents and two brothers were killed in the war.
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Creative writing professor Dan Chaon, who helped Beah produce the book, told The Australian: "If it turns out there are factual errors, I wouldn't necessarily be all that concerned about it."
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In his book, Beah says his home town, the mine where his father worked and his mother's town were all attacked in January 1993. He and a group of friends were then waiting in Mattru Jong for news when a Catholic priest was ordered by the rebels to deliver a message telling people inthe town to co-operate with the rebels. Many people fled immediately; two weeks later, the rebels attacked from a surprise inland route, leaving only one unanticipated escape route on a footpath through a nearby swamp. That is exactly what happened in 1995, according to the adult witnesses, internal records at the mine and numerous published sources.

It sounds like no one is disputing the events in the book, merely the dates. Beah is vehemently denying the allegations that his facts are incorrect. In any event, he clearly went through a terrible ordeal and his book has shed light on the horrifying lives of child soldiers.