Books in Women Writing Africa series

This “impassioned, beautifully written memoir” by a survivor of female circumcision is a “brutally honest” story of tragedy and triumph (Publishers Weekly). As a nomad, Fadumo Korn freely roamed the wild steppes of her native Somalia until her mother delivered her into the hands of an “excisor” to become a woman in the eyes of her tribe by undergoing female genital cutting. But serious complications brought on by the circumcision would force her to leave her home on a journey of survival and self-discovery. Fadumo first traveled to the bustling city of Mogadishu and the household of a wealthy uncle, a brother of the Somali president. There, she entered a world of luxury underpinned by political instability and cruelty in a country eager for rebellion. As her symptoms worsened, she journeyed to Germany, where she received not only therapy but love and acceptance in the most unlikely of places. With this “courageous . . . indispensable testament,” Fadumo Korn weaves together a sensitive understanding of traditional practices with revelations about their disturbing effects. Full of sorrow and surprising humor, Born in the Big Rains provides a candid history of a life sculpted by crippling rheumatism and an unexpected path to recovery (Elfriede Jelinek, 2004 Nobel Laureate in Literature).

This powerful memoir portrays the life-altering transformation of a feisty nomad girl who undergoes genital excision. Crippled with rheumatism as a result of the cutting, Fadumo Korn, who once freely roamed the deserts of her native Somalia, is sent to live with a wealthy uncle, brother to the Somali president. She enters a world of luxury underpinned with political instability and cruelty, but receives an invaluable education. Korn eventually moves to Germany for therapy and recounts her life there—her marriage, the birth of her son, and her involvement in the movement to end genital cutting—with warm and inspiring humor.

“A moving, unsentimental, and informative account of the painful personal experience that inspired, and continues to fuel, [Fadumo Korn’s] work.”—Francine Prose, People magazine, starred critic’s choice“This impassioned, beautifully written memoir is a testament to the possibility of wedding literary prose to sophisticated political arguments. . . . A brutally honest, politically sensitive, and bold addition to literature on global women’s health.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review“A courageous . . . indispensable testament.”—Elfriede Jelinek, 2004 Nobel Laureate in LiteratureSelected as a Kirkus Reviews top pick for book clubs, Fadumo Korn’s story describes her brutal circumcision at age seven and her agonizing path to physical and psychological recovery.Born a nomad, freely roaming the Somalian steppes, Korn nearly dies from the effects of female genital mutilation (FGM). As her health deteriorates, Korn is sent to Mogadishu for treatment and, despite the looming civil war, finds herself living amid luxury in the household of her uncle, a relative of the Somali president. Escaping the political upheaval, she travels to Europe for advanced medical care and eventually becomes an anti-FGM activist.Fadumo Korn is the vice president of FORWARD-Germany, an organization dedicated to promoting action to stop FGM. She lives with her husband and son in Munich.Writer and radio journalist Sabine Eichhorst is the author of Courage to Defend Yourself: Strategies against Sexual Violence and A Long Way Home: A Prisoner of Uzbekistan.Dr. Tobe Levin is collegiate professor at the University of Maryland in Europe and co-founder of FORWARD-Germany.

In 1807, a small rural New York press published the first edition of P. D. Manville’s Lucinda; or the Mountain Mourner. Over the next five decades now fewer than ten printings of the novel appeared in three different states. In the book, the eponymous heroine is one of seven children left to the ailing and poverty-stricken widower Adrian Manvill. Although it is a memoir, Lucinda reads like a sentimental epistolary novel, where the heroine is seduced, abandoned, and then dies in isolation shortly after her illegitimate child is born. Mischelle B. Anthony’s critical edition rescues this once popular cautionary tale from obscurity and positions it among such classic early American narratives as Charlotte Temple and The Coquette. In her introduction, Anthony sheds light on the text’s multiple functions among its nineteenth-century readership and draws attention to its unique status as a narrative written by a participant in the events.