JAMESTOWN - On April 25 at 7 p.m., the Robert H. Jackson Center will host an evening with Ishmael Beah, author of A LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. What does war look like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.
In A LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah, now 26 years old, tells a powerfully gripping story: At the age of 12, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By 13, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At 16, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and, finally, to heal.
This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. Time Magazine calls A LONG WAY GONE, a breathtaking and unselfpitying account of how a gentle spirit survives a childhood from which all innocence has suddenly been sucked out. It's a truly riveting memoir.
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Ishmael Beah
The presentation is free and open to the public. There will be a reception with the author at 6 p.m. For more information, call 483-6646 or email info@roberthjackson.org.
The Robert H. Jackson Center's mission is to advance the legacy of Robert H. Jackson - U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Chief U.S. Prosecutor of the major Nazi war criminals following WWII at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) trial at Nuremberg - through education and exhibits, and by pursuing the relevance of his ideas for future generations. The Center is located at 305 East Fourth St., Jamestown.
Tours are available from 10 a.m. 4 p.m., Monday Friday and from 10 a.m. 2 p.m. on Saturdays. E-mail at info@roberthjackson.org or visit www.roberthjackson.org. For additional information, contact the Robert H. Jackson Center at 483-6646.
The Center can also be found on Facebook (Robert H. Jackson Center fan page) & Twitter (follow RHJCenter).
