They Poured Fire On Us From the Sky
By Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, & Benjamin Ajak with Judy A. Bernstein
20th Anniversary Edition
“I was fast: that was my gift. If I did something bad, I would run. If something bad happened to me, I would run too. That night all the turmoil broke out, I ran, like my mother had told me….”
Five-year-old Benjamin stood in the field, tending the goats, when the raiders arrived. Moments later, as gunshots, flames, and screams engulfed his village, Benjamin found himself running, as fast as his legs could carry him. In a nearby village, his cousins, seven-year-old Alephonsion and Benson, were driven from their homes as well. Every step led the boys away from their peaceful traditional world where spear-toting fathers protected their huts from the lions that roamed by night. With each footstep they were drawn deeper into the horrific violence of Sudan’s civil war: a world of bombed-out villages, mine-sown roads, and relentless desert, a world where starving adults would snatch the grain from a weak child’s fingers.
Across Sudan, between 1987 and 1989, tens of thousands of young boys took flight from these massacres. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on the back, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live.
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys’ account out of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child’s-eye-vision, Alephonsion, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns how they endured hunger and strength-sapping illnesses — dysentery, river blindness, and yellow fever. How they dodged the life-threatening predators – lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike – that dogged their footsteps. How they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them.
But as well, however, their story shares glimpses of the tiny joys that kept them going: the dear friends they made – and sometimes lost – along the way, the joy of finding one another after they had been separated, and rare moments of a stranger’s kindness, comfort, and respite. It celebrates the tenacity, ingenuity, and raw spirit by which three small boys survived and, to some degree, came to terms with the chaos, greed, and immeasurable sorrow of the adult world they encountered.
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is a lyrical, captivating portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and how three very young boys had the good fortune and belief in themselves to survive.
Over 150,000 copies sold.
Our Awards
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
Christopher Award Winner for Adult Books
Peacemaker Award Winner
Our Reviews
“Tender and lyrical… One of the most riveting stories ever told of African childhoods—and a stirring tale of courage… Anyone interested in Africa, its children or the human will to survive should read this book. This beautifully told volume will remain on my desk for years to come.” ―The Washington Post
“A moving, beautifully written account, by turns raw and tender.” ―Los Angeles Times
“[The authors’] accounts, written first in lesson books and then on computer have been skillfully put together in a narrative, each boy carrying both history and that of their joint flight and reunion forward. The result is both fascinating and immediate, not least because of the guilelessness of the language and the particularly African use of metaphor and imagery. They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky conjures up a world of marabou storks, acacia trees, termite mounds taller than men, scorpions and snakes that move in the dark, a world governed by traditions, rituals, seasons, weather, and obligations.” ―New York Review of Books
“Their words speak for those who no longer have a voice. Their story will take the reader on a trip not soon forgotten of spirits unwilling to be broken.” ―San Antonio Express-News
“Their serious tone, broken by the occasional wry smile, memorializes their parents, the land and animals that wove the tapestry of their early childhoods. One reviewer called the book ‘deceptively understated.’ But the soft plainness of the young writers’ voices, combined with their moral insight, throws the surreal danger and strife into sharp relief.” ―San Diego Union-Tribune
“[They Poured Fire] is an amazing account of boys who managed to survive a terrifying ordeal. There’s a kind of haunting beauty to their story. After reading this book, readers may feel like they’ve been on an adventure or in hell, depending on your point of view. Whatever the case, this book is an eye-opener.” ―Rocky Mountain News
“Lovely and unusual. Vital stories that can help readers understand events in Sudan on a human level. But They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky is no mere historical document; it is a wise and sophisticated examination of the arbitrary cruelties and joys of being alive.” ―Star Tribune
“[The] book is at once an important addition to the contemporary dialog on world affairs and a surprisingly lyrical account of coming of age under adverse conditions. These folkloric memories replete with lions and circumcision rituals describe a world centuries removed from the high-tech industrialization of Western society. But they years of war also have bestowed wisdom, and simple observations of childhood are seen now through different eyes.” ―Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“[The book] represent[s] genuine, heartfelt examples of what war does to young people and how they may adjust to life outside the country of their birth, especially the social and intellectual problems they experience.” ―Deseret Morning News
“In a harrowing account of the war, three young refugees in California remember how they were driven from their homes in Southern Sudan in the ethnic and religious conflicts that have left two million dead. They tell their stories quietly with the help of their mentor, coauthor Judy Bernstein, in clear, interwoven, narratives that put a personal face on statistics.” ―Booklist
“Well written, often poetic essays… This collection is moving in its descriptions of unbelievable courage.” ―Publishers Weekly
