Tears of the Desert

The inspiring story of one Darfuri woman's determination to survive and her courage in the face of appalling atrocities. - by Halima Bashir

Published 2008 by Hodder & Stoughton pp 336 ISBN 978-0-345-50625-2

Written by Halima Bashir, a physician and refugee living in London, and BBC correspondent Damien Lewis, Tears of the Desert offers a vivid personal portrait of life in the Darfur region of Sudan. Doted on by her father, who bucked tradition to give his daugher an education, and feisty grandmother, who bequeathed a fierce independence, Bashir grew up in the vibrant culture of a close-knit Darfur village. (Its darker side emerges in her horrific account of undergoing a clitoridectomy at just eight years-old.) She anticipated a bright future after medical school, but tensions between Sudan's Arab-dominated Islamist dictatorship and black African communities like her Zaghawa tribe finally exploded into conflict. The violence the author recounts is harrowing: the outspoken Bashir endured brutal gang-rapes by government soldiers, and her village was wiped out by marauding Arab horsemen and helicopter gunships. This is a vehement cri de coeur – 'I wanted to fight and kill every Arab, to slaughter them, to drive them out of the country,' the author thought upon treating girls who had been raped and mutilated – but in showing what she suffered, and lost, Bashir makes it resonate.'

Review from Publishers' Weekly, 2 June 2008