He was born in Sierra Leone in 1980 and by 1993 was a
child soldier in a civil war that killed his parents and two brothers. It was
"a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter," according to the
Publishers Weekly review of
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Eventually, Beah fled to New York, graduated from Oberlin, and wrote this memoir, which Starbucks is currently pushing. Tonight you can see Beah read
somewhere other than Starbucks. (
University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400. 7 pm, free.)