War Child – Emmanuel Jal

In the mid-1980s Emmanuel Jal was a seven year old Sudanese boy living in a small village with his parents aunts uncles and siblings. But as Sudans civil war moved closer–with the Islamic government seizing tribal lands for water oil and other resources–Jals family moved again and again seeking peace. Then on one terrible day Jal was separated from his mother and later learned she had been killed; his father Simon rose to become a powerful commander in the Christian Sudanese Liberation Army fighting for the freedom of Sudan. Soon Jal was conscripted into that army one of 10000 child soldiers and fought through two separate civil wars over nearly a decade. But remarkably Jal survived and his life began to change when he was adopted by a British aid worker. He began the journey that would lead him to change his name and to music: recording and releasing his own album which produced the number one hip-hop single in Kenya and from there went on to perform with Moby Bono Peter Gabriel and other international music stars. Shocking inspiring and finally hopeful War Child is a memoir by a unique young man who is determined to tell his story and in so doing bring peace to his homeland.