Freetown is recalled through Samuel Bai’s childhood accounts, which place the city at the intersection of gang violence, children’s exploitation, and a personal longing for freedom. The narrative does not present a broad portrait of the city; instead, it gives it shape through particular places and memories connected to Samuel.

Setting and Associations

Sofia Zetterlund tells Jeanette Kihlberg that Samuel came from Sierra Leone and describes the country as being in chaos. In her account, paramilitary groups used children for tasks adults could scarcely imagine. Freetown is also the setting for Samuel’s involvement with a criminal gang, whose members committed robberies and break-ins and sometimes frightened people on the orders of a local mafia boss.

Violence and Childhood

One of Samuel’s memories places him in a dark shack on Lumley Beach, outside Freetown, where he said he cut off a little girl’s ears. The episode comes through Frankly Samuel, one of the distinct personalities Sofia encounters in treatment. His cheerful manner as he recounts the violence makes the memory especially unsettling: Freetown is linked not just to criminal activity, but to the grave harm Samuel describes as part of his childhood.

Motorcycles and Freedom

Freetown also appears in a contrasting memory of desire and escape. Samuel had spoken of visiting a motorcycle club there to admire its rows of bikes. At fourteen, he gave in to temptation, stole a Harley, and rode it along the wide beaches outside the city. In Sofia’s office, seeing a motorcycle again brings him excitement; he handles it tenderly and calls the bikes freedom. These memories do not erase the violence associated with Freetown, but set beside it a rare image of Samuel’s childhood organized around fascination and exhilaration rather than coercion.