Introduction

A haunting, beautiful first novel by the bestselling author of A Long Way Gone

When Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone was published in 2007, it soared to the top of bestseller lists, becoming an instant classic: a harrowing account of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the fate of child soldiers that “everyone in the world should read” (The Washington Post). Now Beah, whom Dave Eggers has called “arguably the most read African writer in contemporary literature,” has returned with his first novel, an affecting, tender parable about postwar life in Sierra Leone.
     At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie, two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. As more villagers begin to come back, Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former posts as teachers, but they’re beset by obstacles: a scarcity of food; a rash of murders, thievery, rape, and retaliation; and the depredations of a foreign mining company intent on sullying the town’s water supply and blocking its paths with electric wires. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they’re forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike.
     With the gentle lyricism of a dream and the moral clarity of a fable, Radiance of Tomorrow is a powerful novel about preserving what means the most to us, even in uncertain times.

Editorial Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, January 2014: Ishmael Beah's 2007 memoir A Long Way Gone described Beah's own experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. In Radiance of Tomorrow, his first novel, he examines what happens when the survivors of war try to return home. At first the refugees arrive like a trickle to their hometown, straggling into a place populated only by bones. Former enemies learn to live together, a school is established, and they begin to rebuild their village and their lives. But the world has changed since they were last there--the clash between tradition and the encroaching world is like a new war, particularly when a mining company moves into town. This novel hits several superlative notes: in the details that Beah chooses to share, in the characters he uses to tell the story, and in the universality of his tale. It is a memorable and emotionally resonant first novel, one that may mark the start of a major new novelist. --Chris Schluep

Excerpt

1





It is the end, or maybe the beginning, of another story.

Every story begins and ends with a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a girl, a child.

Every story is a birth …

SHE WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE where it seemed the wind no longer exhaled. Several miles from town, the trees had entangled one another. Their branches grew toward the ground, burying the leaves in the soil to blind their eyes so the sun would not promise them tomorrow with its rays. It was only the path that was reluctant to cloak its surface completely with grasses, as though it anticipated it would soon end its starvation for the warmth of bare feet that gave it life. ... view entire excerpt...

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