Chris Blattman on Ishmael Beah's "A Long Way Gone"

The Australian has alleged that Ishmael Beah fabricated parts of his memoir, A Long Way Gone, on being a child solider in Sierra Leone. See Chris Blattman's post.

"Author Ishmael Beah's bestselling account of his time as a child soldier was proved factually flawed by a document found in a remote Sierra Leone schoolhouse. The school results for March 1993 showed the popular author attended the Centennial Secondary School throughout the January-March term, a time when he claimed in his heartrending book A Long Way Gone that he was already roaming the countryside as a child refugee. Beah, his New York publisher Sarah Crichton Books and his Australian co-publisher HarperCollins have furiously denied reports by The Weekend Australian in recent weeks that have undermined the credibility of his highly profitable book."

"Beah is estimated to have earned about $1 million from the book, which has already sold more than 650,000 copies. Beah, now 27, did spend some time as a child soldier during his country's civil war, but it appears likely to have been a few months around the age of 15 rather than two years from the age of 13 that he vividly describes in his book. The author, who now lives in New York and has been appointed by UNICEF as an advocate for child soldiers, this week dismissed The Australian's investigations as ridiculous and ill-motivated despite the steady accumulation of evidence that his account of his experiences did not add up."