Adamalui: A Survivor’s Journey from Civil Wars in Africa to Life in America
About this audiobook
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.
About the author
Joseph Ben Kaifala, Esq., is a human-rights activist, a Rastafarian, a votary of ahimsa, and a member of the DC Bar, and he speaks six languages. He was born in Sierra Leone and spent his early childhood in Liberia and Guinea. He later moved to Norway where he studied for the international baccalaureate (IB) at the Red Cross Nordic United World College before enrolling at Skidmore College in upstate New York where he majored in international affairs and French and minored in law and society. He holds a Master’s degree in international relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, a diploma in intercultural encounters from the Helsinki Summer School, and a certificate in professional French administered by the French Chamber of Commerce. He is founder of Jeneba Project and co-founder of the Sierra Leone Memory Project. He has served as a Davis United World College fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies; a Humanity in Action (HIA) senior fellow; a Tom Lantos-HIA US Congressional fellow; a Chicago Council on Global Affairs Agricultural Development Initiative intern; and an intern at the Child and Adolescent Development Department of the World Health Organization in Geneva. He was an Applied Human Rights Fellow at Vermont Law School, where he obtained his JD and Certificate in International & Comparative Law. He is recipient of the Skidmore College Palamountain Prose Award, Skidmore College Thoroughbred Award, Vermont Law School (SBA) Student Pro Bono Award, and a member of “Who’s Who among Students in American Universities & Colleges’ in recognition of outstanding merit and accomplishments as a student at Vermont Law School. Joseph was a 2013 American Society of International Law Helton fellow. He served as Justice of the Arthur Chapter of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity International.
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.
