Ishmael Beah
In conversation with Louise Steinman, author and curator, ALOUD at Central Library
At age twelve, Beah (now twenty-five), fled attacking rebels in his native Sierra Leone and was picked up by the government army. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop?
Co-presented with Human Rights Watch Young Advocates
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 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.
Louise Steinman is curator of ALOUD at Central Library and co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC. She is the author of two books: The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War and The Knowing Body: The Artist as Storyteller in Contemporary Performance. She is working on a book about Poland.
Unless otherwise indicated, ALOUD programs take place at the Los Angeles Central Library's Mark Taper Auditorium, 630 W. Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071.
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