Statement from Ishmael Beah’s editor and publisher:

Back in January 2008, a trio of Australian broadsheet reporters thought they had a hot tip: an Australian mining supervisor in Sierra Leone claimed to have found, alive and well, the father of Ishmael Beah, the bestselling author of A LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Not only that, the tipster told them, he thought the mother and two brothers were alive, as well. In his memoir, Beah had written powerfully of the death of his entire family. If the tipster was right, the reporters were onto a major hoax. So reporters flew to Sierra Leone. The problem was this: it turned out Ishmael had written the truth.

What followed was a profoundly ugly, relentless and scurrilous campaign on the part of these reporters to find some way—any way–to discredit Beah and his memoir. But they failed to do so. And when major news organizations, including the AP and the New York Times, looked into the Australian’s allegations, they found them wanting.

These are times when all memoirs are scrutinized, and for understandable reasons. There have been too many hoaxes; too many writers have played too loosely with the truth; too many publishers have failed to check out their books before they’ve published.

But memoirs like Ishmael Beah’s are not only worthy of readers’ trust and respect, they play a hugely important role in helping us understand what is happening in the world. Even at its ugliest, the Australian never questioned the basic authenticity of Ishmael Beah’s story: Beah was a child soldier in one of the most brutal and chaotic civil wars of recent times. And in his stirring and brave memoir, he has given voice to a community—child soldiers—clamoring, desperate to be heard.

I am proud to have been his editor and his publisher.

Sarah Crichton