Don't Look Back: A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America
Don't Look Back: A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America
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Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Annotation: "I want life. For ten years, Achut Deng surrived at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya after her family was ripped apart by the Second Sudanese Civil War. But Achut wanted to do more than merely survive. She wanted to live. The twenty-two-year civil war essentially orphaned over 20,000 children and drove them from their villages in southern Sudan. Some of these children walked over a thousand miles, through dangerous war zones and across unforgiving deserts. They are often referred to as The Lost Boys. But there were girls, too. Achut Deng was one of them. This is her story. It's a story of unimaginable hardship and selfless bravery, of
Genre: [Biographies]
 
Reviews: 1
Catalog Number: #326999
Format: Publisher's Hardcover
Copyright Date: 2022
Edition Date: 2022 Release Date: 10/11/22
Pages: 345 pages
ISBN: 0-374-38972-1
ISBN 13: 978-0-374-38972-7
Dewey: 921
LCCN: 2022007776
Dimensions: 22 cm
Language: English
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews

A refugee who survived the Second Sudanese Civil War tells her story.Co-authors Hutton and Deng open with historical and political context for the brutal civil war that wracked Sudan from 1983 to 2005 before recounting Deng's harrowing tale. This compelling first-person narrative moves swiftly through short and often suspenseful chapters that chronicle Deng's life from 1988 through 2010, mostly focusing on the horrors she endured between November 1991, when she was 6 and fled a rebel soldiers' attack on her village, through her August 1992 arrival at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya after an arduous 1,000-mile trek. Deng grew up at the camp, enduring ongoing deprivation and loss but also receiving some education and making deep friendships. At age 16 she resettled in Texas in a situation that brought its own challenges. Woven throughout are themes of unresolved grief (she does not know if her parents are alive), her Christian faith (where is God in all the atrocities she has witnessed?), patriarchy (she must cede to older male relatives' wishes), and hope (modeled for her by loving adults). Deng is now a mother who has built a life in the U.S., working in human relations in a South Dakota meatpacking plant. This is a gripping account of an extraordinary journey.A powerful read for this time of unprecedented refugee movement across the globe. (authors' note, family tree, Deng's letter to readers) (Memoir. 12-18)

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Kirkus Reviews
Reading Level: 6.0
Interest Level: 7-12

I want life. After a deadly attack in South Sudan left six-year-old Achut Deng without a family, she lived in refugee camps for ten years, until a refugee relocation program gave her the opportunity to move to the United States. When asked why she should be given a chance to leave the camp, Achut simply told the interviewer: I want life. But the chance at starting a new life in a new country came with a different set of challenges. Some of them equally deadly. Taught by the strong women in her life not to look back, Achut kept moving forward, overcoming one obstacle after another, facing each day with hope and faith in her future. Yet, just as Achut began to think of the US as her home, a tie to her old life resurfaced, and for the first time, she had no choice but to remember her past. In this powerful, and propulsive memoir, Achut Deng and Keely Hutton tell a harrowing and inspiring story showing both the ugliness and the beauty of humanity, and the power of not giving up.


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