Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbours began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were ‘thunder’. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years wandering through seven African countries, searching for safety – perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive. When Clemantine was twelve, she and her sister were granted asylum in the United States, where she embarked on another journey – to excavate her past and, after years of being made to feel less than human, claim her individuality.
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
€12.00
Description
A riveting story of dislocation, survival, and the power of stories to break or save us
When Clemantine Wamariya was six years old, her world was torn apart. She didn’t know why her parents began talking in whispers, or why her neighbours started disappearing, or why she could hear distant thunder even when the skies were clear.
As the Rwandan civil war raged, Clemantine and her sister Claire were forced to flee their home. They ran for hours, then walked for days, not towards anything, just away. they sought refuge where they could find it, and escaped when refuge became imprisonment. Together, they experienced the best and the worst of humanity. After spending six years seeking refuge in eight different countries, Clemantine and Claire were granted refugee status in America and began a new journey.
Honest, life-affirming and searingly profound, this is the story of a girl’s struggle to remake her life and create new stories – without forgetting the old ones.
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‘Extraordinary and heartrending. Wamariya is as fiercely talented as she is courageous’ JUNOT DIAZ, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
‘Brilliant … has captivated me for a couple of years’ SELMA BLAIR
Additional information
| Weight | 0.203 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 19.8 × 23 × 2 cm |
| Book_author | Wamariya, Clemantine |
| Publisher | Windmill Books |
| Imprint | Windmill Books |
| Cover | Paperback |
| Pages | 275 |
| Language | English |
| Edition | |
| Dewey | 967.5710431092 (edition:23) |
| Readership | General – Trade / Code: K |
