At eight years of age, Quanei Karmue is living the American Dream in the sun-swept country of Liberia. His father is away on an extended business trip to the US working to solidify the family’s fortune. Quanei and his siblings are left in the care of their mother, a respected nurse, pharmacist, and leader in their close-knit community where all the women are called “Auntie” and all the men “Uncle.” As a curious child, Quanei has perfected his stealth and spying skills. He is drawn to the conversation of adults—as he knows that’s where you learn what is really going on in the world. He overhears rumors of war, and when his Aunt and Uncle arrive terrified in the middle of the night, the Karmues are swept up in chaos and must hide from bloodthirsty rebel soldiers, and surprisingly, the government’s own brutal troops.
Quanei’s tale takes you across two continents and he makes you a witness, as he is, of the horrors of the civil war crashing through Liberia. Through his eyes, you will feel part of the true-life situation where drug-crazed youth were given arms and free reign to brutalize the people around them, creating a society where the smell of death regularly mixes with the dewy fresh air of early morning. In WITNESS, Quanei describes his mother’s fight to keep her kids alive in a new world order where who lives, starves, or dies depends on chance and quick decisions. With his father unable to get back to his family, Quanei’s mother leads them through government and rebel clashes, fields of bodies rotting in the tropical sun, and massacre after massacre. We witness his mother’s heroics culminating in a brutal act where she is forced to make an impossible choice.
