Truth and fiction

Or, orature and witnessing in Ishmael Beah'sA Long Way Gone

Bibliographic Data

ID2179092
AuthorsFrancis Ngaboh‐smart (corresponding author), Francis Ngaboh-Smart
Year2017
Volume53
Issue5
Pages543-554
Publication date2017-09-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2016.1273252
OpenAlexW2593889351
LanguageEN
References cited17

The publication in 2007 of Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone, which sold more than 62,000 copies within a few months, etched Sierra Leone in the global consciousness. The book’s popularity and wide circulation provoked a critical response from The Australian newspaper, which used its understanding of non-fiction to challenge the veracity of Beah’s version of the civil war, as well as the story’s time line. This article argues that Beah’s multiple cultural affiliations situate him within a generically hybrid space that enables him to draw on western and non-western rhetorical traditions, especially Mende storytelling and other closely related narrative conventions. These allow the writer to negotiate successfully the space between fact and form, and add a new dimension to human rights witnessing. Critics have often failed to address adequately the implications of this multilayered composition

Aesthetics · Art · Consciousness · Epistemology · Literature · Media studies · Memoir · Narrative · Political science · Popularity · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Storytelling · Vernacular · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · History · Law · Philosophy

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