Radiance of Tomorrow

by Ishmael Beah
Hennepin County Library hardcover 240 pages
genre: novel, realistic fiction

Sad, beautiful, depressing, hopeful. Although this is a work of fiction, it rings so true. The corruption of people in this story made me so sad. Why are people so evil toward other people? A lot of the scenarios are ones I have read about in the newspaper. Money and food are sent for people who are poor and suffering, but it never reaches them because people in power take it and sell it on the black market to make themselves richer.

I don't even want to list the characters. This is a book worth re-reading!

page 60 - After the principal gives a pep talk: "The teachers could do little with his inspirational messages. They were missing all the ingredients: salaries, school materials, and faith in the educational system itself."

pages 60-1 - Backarie responds to a student who questions the value of education if even educated teachers are poor and hungry: "Its (education's) purpose is far greater than just improving your economic condition. In your case, you all need education so that you can be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that will come along. You cannot wait for the opportunity and then get an education when it arrives. You'll be too late."

page 93 - Comparing Colonel's and Miller's tactics with the mining company's actions: "But what was more violent than making people disbelieve in the worth of their own lives?"

page 124-5 - Salimatu coming home after being raped and Colonel going out for revenge. He says to Bockarie: "I learned something during the war. . . . you are not free until you stop others from making you feel worthless. Because if you do not, you will eventually accept that you are worthless."

page 144 - Benjamin's notes (he reads these before his first day on the job with the mining company): "Teach them how to absorb knowledge as opposed to just memorizing. Teach them to become individual thinkers and not part of the majority that agrees with what is popular."

page 167 - Mama Kadie's speech. Radiance of tomorrow. Strength. So beautiful I had to scan and include the whole thing.

 page 170 - Where was the editor?! Proofreader?! Last sentence says "Later that night . . . . Benjamin, his father, Kula, . . . . " Benjamin was dead! This should have said Bockarie. Then later on page 228, a character's name is spelled as Maita instead of Miata. At first, I was trying to figure out who the new character was. Errors like this are so disappointing!

page 236 -  " . . . she (Mama Kadie) knew the little girl (Oumu) was ready to receive the stories of the past, the ones that strengthen your backbone when the world whips you and weakens your spirit."

This book is so lyrically beautiful. Beah uses language to paint pictures and affect the reader's mood. He grew up in Sierra Leone, which has 15 languages and 3 dialects. He spoke seven of them. He said that Mende, his mother tongue, is very expressive. For example, where we might say, "night came suddenly," he'd say, "the sky rolled over and changed sides." Or "ball" becomes "a nest of air."

Overall, this was such an unbelievably beautiful book. Hard to read some of the very realistic portrayals of suffering, but so worthwhile.