Slave: The True Story of a Girl's Lost Childhood and Her FIght for Survival

by Damien Lewis (Author), Mende Nazer (Author), Damien Lewis (Author), Mende Nazer (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $4.11

  Mende Nazer's happy childhood was cruelly cut short at the age of twelve when the Mujahidin rode into her village in the remote Nuba mountains of Sudan. They hacked down terrified villagers, raped the women and abducted the children. Mende was them. She was taken and sold to an Arab woman in Khartoum. She was stripped of her name and her freedom. For seven long years she was kept as a domestic slave, an 'abid', without any pay or a single day off. Her food was the leftover scraps and her bed was the floor of the locked-up garden shed. She endured this harsh and lonely existence without knowing whether her family was alive or dead, for seven long years. Passed on by her master, like a parcel, to a relative in London, Mende eventually managed to escape to freedom. Slave is a shocking first-person insight into the modern day slave trade. It is also a fascinating memoir of an African childhood and a moving testimony to a young girl's indomitable spirit in the face of adversity.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $4.19

  Mende Nazer had an idyllic early childhood with her loving family in a small village in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, until she was brutally kidnapped by the Mujahidin. She was kept as a domestic slave by a woman in Khartoum without any pay or a single day off. Mende endured this harsh and lonely existence without knowing whether her family was alive or dead, for seven long years. In the spring of 2000 Mende was passed on by her master, like a parcel, to a relative in London. Eventually she managed to make contact with other Nuba exiles who, with British journalist and filmmaker Damien Lewis, helped her escape to freedom. In 2002 she was awarded the Human Rights Award by CECRA, the Spanish Coalition Against Slavery for her work in making slavery a public issue.

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $21.98

  At age twelve, Mende Nazer lost her childhood. It began one horrific night in 1993, when Arab raiders swept through her Nuba village, setting fire to the village huts and murdering the adults. They rounded up thirty-one young children, including Mende, who was eventually sold to a wealthy Arab family in Sudans capital city, Khartoum. So began Mendes seven dark years of enslavement. Normally, Mendes story never would have come to light, but when she was sent to work for another mastera diplomat working in Londonshe made a dramatic break for freedom. Published to critical acclaim for the honesty and clarity of its prose, Slave is a story almost beyond belief. It depicts the strength and dignity of the Nuba tribe. It recounts the savage cruelty of the secret, modern-day trade in slaves. Most of all, it is a profound meditation on the human ability to survive under virtually any circumstances. (Publishers Weekly)