“Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone offers a rich and compelling ethnographic account of life in a Kono village in eastern Sierra Leone in the 1980s before the onset of the Sierra Leone civil war in 1991. It represents one of the best recollections of life in pre-war Sierra Leone and it should be preserved to help future generations appreciate what life was like in Sierra Leone before the war.”— Fodei J. Batty, Quinnipiac University

Written with elegant and vivid prose, Betsy Small's timely and important memoir, Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone, transports us to the farming village  in West Africa in 1984, where she landed as a newly-minted Peace Corps Agriculture Volunteer only a few years before the country and its people would be unimaginably scarred by civil conflict and disease. The extraordinary depths of research, self-reflection, and care that Small plumbed to bring this story to the page of not only the community she encountered then, but also the unbreakable connections that remain 40 years later, despite all that has changed, are what make this book immeasurably compelling. A must-read for all who seek to understand how our shared humanity is stronger than the forces that strive to tear us apart.

— Melanie Brooks, author of A Hard Silence and Writing Hard Stories

“Riveting, revealing, and brimming with heart-stopping beauty and cruelty, Before Before is not just a great book, but an essential one for these times. It's a model of compassion and of humility, and of brilliant story-telling that both honors and chastens humanity.”— Sy Montgomery, NY Times Bestselling Author of How To Be a Good Creature

“A masterful blend of autobiography and ethnography, offering readers a window into Sierra Leone’s past and present through the eyes of a thoughtful observer and a loving mother. The 2013 visit with Lilly adds emotional depth and narrative symmetry, reminding us that stories—like lives—are never truly finished. They echo, evolve, and invite us to listen anew.”

— Mark D. Walker, WorldView Magazine

When JFK established the Peace Corps he had modest expectations of fostering mutual understanding between Americans and people of other nations and cultures. He underestimated the impact it was to have on those of us who served. Betsy Small's masterpiece tells that story. In a small village in Sierra Leone she finds her resilience, empathy, understanding, and grit. In the Krio and Kono languages Learn and Teach are interchangeable—a fitting metaphor for this extraordinary book.

— Donna E. Shalala, Peace Corps Iran 1962-1964; former US Secretary of Health and Human Services

Betsy Small's beautiful writing transports you straight to the sights, sounds, and smells of Tokpombu, and immediately brought me back to my years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. Before Before is a vivid account of what we all learn intimately as volunteers: we set out to share and teach, but return as the ones truly taught.

— Joseph P Kennedy III, Peace Corps Dominican Republic 2004–2006; former US Special Envoy to Northern

"A powerful commentary and memoir that challenge Western narratives of Sierra Leone."— Kirkus Reviews

“In Sierra Leone, we have many sayings—Wan an bangul noh bah shake (It takes many bracelets on a wrist to make a beautiful sound) is an example. The stories and memories invoked in Before Before are illustrative of this core belief—that it takes many voices to tell a story. These chapters not only tell stories of Sierra Leone from a whole new perspective, but they weave an intersection between what people want to hear and what they may not yet understand.”— Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, Ph.D., ABPP, City College of New York

2025 Foreword INDIES Finalist for Political and Social Sciences

— Foreword