Ishmael Beah was born in a small village in Sierra Leone in 1980 and moved to the US in 1998 to finish his schooling. He now lives in New York. But the interim years were utterly shattered from normality after his childhood involuntarily ended at the age of 12, when he escaped the rebel army attacking his family village and lived wild for months with several equally young friends, before being picked up by the government army and press-ganged into a life of appalling violence and extreme drug-taking. It continued until he was 17 and was removed from the scenario by UNICEF.

In a remarkably short time, Beah was given the most sophisticated rehabilitation treatment and re-learned forgiveness. He was able to express his experiences so eloquently and movingly that he was chosen to go to the UN in New York as a representative of the world's child soldiers. The visit led to his adoption by an American woman, Laura Sims, and an education in the US (he graduated from Oberlin College in 2004). Writing became his passion. This year he published A Long Way Gone - Memoirs of a Child Soldier. This is both shocking and moving, and a tribute to the process of rehabilitation which enabled him to resume a normal life.

Beah is now an important delegate for many NGOs involved with children affected by war and is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.