In Sierra Leone, Wilson discovered that the man claiming to be Ishmael’s father was mistaken and was most likely a distant cousin, but questions about the book’s timeline remained puzzling.
In January, the Australian’s European correspondent, Peter Wilson, traveled from London to Sierra Leone to investigate Beah’s story on the ground while Gare finished writing the piece back in Sydney. … Why you said in my letter that this man came to you and why you told Sarah that you sought out the boy’s father.” The e-mail concluded with this ominous warning: “We are deeply concerned that this issue not go further than you, and Sarah and myself.” “However, Ishmael say that this is NOT his father. “Thank you for pursing this,” the e-mail bearing Simms’ address replied. 23 contained sentence fragments and awkward syntax, as if English wasn’t her first language (which it is). Instead of the polished prose that she had previously written, her e-mail on Nov. Then, the next day, Simms responded to Lloyd with a curious message. 22, Lloyd replied with a follow-up e-mail that included two photos of Joseph Beah, the man claiming to be the father. His reply went unanswered for 10 days, and on Nov. Two days later, Lloyd sent an e-mail back answering Simms’ questions. 9, Simms responded with a protective e-mail and a list of test questions to help determine whether the man was Beah’s father. If true, that would mean Beah served as a soldier only for several months when he was 14 going on 15.įrom the outset, Lloyd received a chilly reception from Beah’s camp. In addition, Lloyd explained in his e-mails that workers at the mine were telling him that the book’s chronology was wrong: Rebels had taken over the mine in January 1995, not 1993 as Beah describes in A Long Way Gone.
A LONG WAY HOME A MEMOIR PROFESSIONAL
He sent e-mails to Beah’s Australian publisher, HarperCollins, FSG, and Beah’s adopted American mother, a New York-based human rights activist and professional storyteller named Laura Simms. Elated at the possibility of reuniting Beah with his father, Lloyd tried contacting Beah. Lloyd had read A Long Way Gone and was especially moved by Beah’s tragic account of his parents’ deaths in a rebel attack on the village of Yele. The story begins last fall when an Australian mining engineer stationed in Sierra Leone named Bob Lloyd learned that one of his employees at the Sierra Rutile mine near Beah’s village claimed to be Beah’s father. Just how did this whole brouhaha start in the first place?
Throughout the onslaught, FSG hasn’t budged. Wilson even planted questions with a student reporter from the Oxford University newspaper after the Oxford Union banned him from attending Beah’s reading there. Last month, Wilson tracked Beah around London during his European book tour, trying to land an interview after repeatedly being rebuffed by FSG. The standoff has spanned four continents and bled into cyberspace, as both sides have entered competing changes into Beah’s Wikipedia page. The fight pits three Australian reporters, Peter Wilson, David Nason, and Shelley Gare, against Beah, Crichton, and Silverberg. But these denials haven’t stopped the Australian from waging one of the fiercest, knock-down, drag-out literary feuds in recent memory. He says he has documented his tragic story with infallible accuracy, and lucidly recounts scenes of violence, executions, and torture. In the book, Beah claims to have a photographic memory. Beah, his editor, Sarah Crichton at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and his agent, Ira Silverberg, vigorously deny the allegations.
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