As a survivor of the devastating civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Joseph Kaifala recounts the harrowing details af an early life punctuated by unimaginable violence and his journey to survival that eventually led him to the United States. Told with humility and grace, Adamalui is the true story of one man’s unshakable faith, thirst for knowledge, and indomitable will.
Kaifala’s experiences as a child prisoner and refugee are told through a series of flashbacks as he endeavors to attain a visa to attend college in America. His memories of the death and destruction that he and his family witnessed while attempting to avoid the violence rampant in impoverished West Africa are written with amazing clarity by a man on a mission to chart a way forward for himself and the others who would follow in his steps.
Kaifala’s hopes for a brighter future for his home country―a country to which he still returns to assist through charitable causes―are crystalized throughout this prescient, timely, and beautifully-written memoir.
Joseph Ben Kaifala, Esq., is a human-rights activist, a Rastafarian, a votary of ahimsa, and a member of the DC Bar. He was born in Sierra Leone and spent his early childhood in Liberia and Guinea. Since then he earned advanced degrees from Skidmore College, Syracuse University, and Vermont Law School. He is founder of Jeneba Project and cofounder of the Sierra Leone Memory Project, among other organizations, and served as an intern at the Child and Adolescent Development Department of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.
Prentice Onayemi is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator and a voice and film actor who is known for his roles in The Steam-Room Crooner, AmeriQua, and as Joey in the Tony Award–winning play War Horse.
Overview
As a survivor of the devastating civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Joseph Kaifala recounts the harrowing details af an early life punctuated by unimaginable violence and his journey to survival that eventually led him to the United States. Told with humility and grace, Adamalui is the true story of one man’s unshakable faith, thirst for knowledge, and indomitable will.
Kaifala’s experiences as a child prisoner and refugee are told through a series of flashbacks as he endeavors to attain a visa to attend college in America. His memories of the death and destruction that he and his family witnessed while attempting to avoid the violence rampant in impoverished West Africa are written with amazing clarity by a man on a mission to chart a way forward for himself and the others who would follow in his steps.
Kaifala’s hopes for a brighter future for his home country―a country to which he still returns to assist through charitable causes―are crystalized throughout this prescient, timely, and beautifully-written memoir.
