A powerful novel about young people in a conflict-scarred land, struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together.

LITTLE FAMILY
by Ishmael Beah
Riverhead, April 2020

Hidden away from a harsh outside world, five young people have improvised a home in an abandoned airplane, a relic of their country’s chaos. Elimane, the bookworm, is as street-smart as he is wise. Clever Khoudiemata maneuvers to keep the younger kids—athletic, pragmatic Ndevui, thoughtful Kpindi, and especially their newest member, Namsa—safe and fed. When Elimane makes himself of service to the shadowy William Handkerchief, it seems as if the little family may be able to keep the world at bay and their household intact. But when Khoudi comes under the spell of the “beautiful people”—the fortunate sons and daughters of the powerful—the desire to resume an interrupted coming of age and follow her own destiny proves impossible to resist. A profound and tender portrayal of the connections we forge to survive the fate we’re dealt, LITTLE FAMILY marks the further blossoming of a unique global voice.

Ishmael Beah, born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, is the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Radiance of Tomorrow, a novel both published by Farrar Straus & Giroux. A Long Way Gone has been published in over 40 languages and was nominated for a Quill Award in the Best Debut Author category for 2007. A UNICEF Ambassador and advocate for Children Affected by War, Ishmael Beah is, among other titles, a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Advisory Committee. He is based in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and children.