THE BOOK FAIR

Author:      Mende Nazer

Published: 2003

Genre:        Autobiography

Cover:        Paperback

Pages:         350

Six Nuba tribes inhabit the Nuba Mountain region of Sudan.  The tribes distinguish from one another by colorful beads, hair-braiding and body-scarring.  The Nazer family belongs to the Karko tribe.  Mende Nazer lived with her siblings and parents until twelve-years old.  “Slave” is Mende Nazer’s autobiography of her years in captivity and fight for freedom.  The book, coauthored by Damien Lewis, a British journalist well versed in the atrocities of war and slavery in Sudan, also coauthored, “Tears of the Desert”, reviewed on this site.

 

Mende Nazer begins her story with the night attack by Arab mujahidin in 1994.  The mujahidin slavers raided villages in search of adolescents.   Mende Nazer reveals the story of her childhood, the peaceful years before her capture and of her years spent as a slave.  Nazer includes the lives of other black African slaves she came to meet while captive.  Nazer describes what were her daily routines, her fears, her desires, and the punishments she endured.  However, more importantly,  Mende Nazer also explains the reasons she survived.

On September 11, 2000, Mende Nazer, the young, slave woman, manages to escape her captors.  Riveting story; highly recommended.