They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan

by Alephonsion Deng, Benson Deng, Benjamin Ajak, Judy A. Bernstein (With)

Overview

A “moving, beautifully written account” (Los Angeles Times) of three Sudanese boys who were driven from their homes by civil war and began an epic odyssey of survival, ultimately finding their way to a new life in America

Between 1987 and 1989, Alepho, Benjamin, and Benson, like tens of thousands of other young boys known as the Lost Boys, took flight from the massacres of Sudan’s civil war. They set out in search of refuge with little more than the clothes on their backs and walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live.

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is a deeply affecting account of that unimaginable journey. With the purity of their child’s-eye vision, the three boys recall how they endured hunger, malaria, life-threatening predators, and a war that threatened to overwhelm them. Now updated with a new afterword, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is a captivating, timeless portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and an inspiring story of survival.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541706330
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	05/12/2026
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alephonsion and Benson Deng and their cousin Benjamin Ajak left the Sudan in 1987 and were relocated in 2001 from the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya to the United States as part of an international refugee relief program.

Editorial 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.”—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 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

"[L]ovely and unusual. [V]ital 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.” —Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher

"In this tender and lyrical story, the world of... Africa's most desperate children-running away from war...is vividly evoked."

Emily Wax Washington Post Book World 8/21/05

Three "lost boys" of Sudan remember lives lived far away from the torrents of history. The boys, now young men in their mid-20s, were members of the Dinka tribe, pastoralists who live in the south of the Sudan. The Dinka and their Nuer cousins, whom Benson Deng characterizes as "the tallest and blackest people in Africa," excited much jealousy among the Arab rulers of the Sudan-rulers who, by Deng's account, wanted the fertile lands between the Blue Nile and White Nile for themselves and, in the bargain, demanded that the Dinka convert to Islam. It was not an attractive offer; "as cattle keepers," Benson adds, "we didn't have time to be meditating with the Qu'ran five times a day." Soon government planes came to bomb Dinka villages whose inhabitants tried to fight back with spears; when better-armed rebel soldiers arrived, they guided the survivors to refugee camps in Ethiopia, where, Benson recounts, food and medicine were in constant shortage and "many of the boys got sick and died from eating grass soups, but it was often all we had." Over the next decade, the boys moved among refugee and rebel camps in Kenya and along the Sudanese border, a life that, Alephonsion writes, "was like being devoured by wild animals." That was little better than being one of the rebel soldiers, Benson adds: Once they strapped on AK-47s, they were controlled as tightly as dogs and sent off to die. Finally, their plight to come to the attention of international relief organizations, and thereafter private American efforts, brought the three boys to the U.S., "the land of many gorgeous goods" and of promises that, one hopes, are being kept. Well-meaning, and valuable as a document of the refugee experience.The boys' narrative, however, would have been better served by a commentary explaining the ongoing Sudanese crisis and otherwise adding more depth to this child's-eye view of events.

Kirkus Reviews