Mende Nazer - Slave: My True Story

Nazer provides beautiful and at times heart-wrenching accounts of the Nubas traditions... an important reminder of the real, lived terrors of thousands of black southern Sudanese whose stories will never be told, and whose freedom may never be won.

The Washington Post

Harrowing... [Nazer] describes being sold into servitude... a fate shared by more than 11,000 people each year in Sudan alone.

People Magazine

[Nazer] dwells on her Nuba childhood with a childlike quality... Ultimately [she] celebrates... rebellion against injustice and the triumph of the human spirit.

The Economist

A clear, compelling, first-person narrative that conveys [Mendes] young voice with powerful authenticity... the details are unforgettable, capturing both the innocence of the child and the world-weariness of one who has endured the worst.

Booklist

Few [memoirs] are as starkly powerful as this one: Nazer tells her story with lucid simplicity, deftly evoking her earlier self to convey that girls innocence, violent loss, and compromise with survival.

The Onion

Ultimately, Slave is the compelling memoir of one womans struggle to hang on to her humanity and of her continuing fight to stop others from losing theirs.

The Kansas City Star

Mende Nazers spirit echoes that of Sojourner Truths during her journey from slave to freedom fighter... told in a childlike voice that conveys innocence and honesty.

Orlando Sentinel

[Nazer] tells her story of individual dignity combined with uncommon courage.

The Denver Post

Told with clarity and dignity... Surprisingly, a book about such a horrible subject is uplifting: Slave is an inspiring testimonial to one young womans remarkable courage and unbreakable spirit.

The Roanoke Times

A shocking, true story of contemporary slavery... [Mende Nazers] eventual and incredible journey into freedom is told simply and with grace even under the circumstances.

Knoxville News-Sentinel

By telling her story, Mende has managed to shed much needed light to the plight of the rest of our African sisters and throughout it all, her strength and beauty never fade.

Waris Dirie, author of Desert Flower

An eye-opening account of the atrocities that can and do happen when one nationality believes it is superior to another, and an unforgettable plea for all people of all nations to focus on the importance of human rights and to understand that we are all equal, all part of one human race, and therefore should all be treated equally.

Norma Khouri,
author of Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan

Slave constitutes an act of tremendous courage. A solitary and profoundly moving voice emerging from the most silenced of quarters.

Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane

A straightforward, harrowing memoir thats a sobering reminder that slavery still needs to be stamped out... a profound meditation on the human ability to survive under virtually any circumstances.

Publishers Weekly

The shockingly grim story of how the author became a slave at the end of the 20th centurymercifully, it has an ending to lift the spirit... Revelatory in the truest sense of the word: told with a child-pure candor that comes like a bucket of cold water in the lap.

Kirkus Reviews

As you read about Nazers enslavement and her eventual run to freedom in September 2000, you will weep, rage, and shout for justice. I couldnt put it down.

Libby Manthey, Riverwalk Books Limited,
Chelan,WA

S L A V E

MENDE NAZER
AND DAMIEN LEWIS

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

New York

Copyright 2003 by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis

Published in the United States by PublicAffairs,
a member of the Perseus Books Group.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, NY 10107. PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, or call (617) 252-5298.

Book design by Jane Raese
Text set in 13-point Perpetua

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nazer, Mende.
Slave: my true story / by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-58648-318-8
1. Nazer, Mende. 2. Child slavesSudanKhartoumBiography. 3. Child slavesEnglandLondonBiography. 4. Nuba (African people)Biography. I. Lewis, Damien. II. Title.
HT1384.K48N39 2004
306.3'62'092dc 22
[B]
2003063249

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This book is dedicated to my Umi and Ba.
I miss you so very much.

MENDE NAZER

For Tean, my beautiful daughter and my best friend,
and for my mother, for being there in times of need.

DAMIEN LEWIS

Contents

PART ONE
MY CHILDHOOD WITH THE NUBA

PART TWO
INTO SLAVERY

PART THREE
JOURNEY TO FREEDOM

PART FOUR
TRULY FREE?

S L A V E

The day that changed my life forever started with a beautiful dawn. I greeted the sunrise by facing east and making the first of my five daily prayers to Allah. It was the spring of 1994, at the end of the dry season. I was about twelve years old (our tribe keeps no record of birthdays). After prayers, I got ready to go to school. It would take me an hour to walk there and an hour back again. I was studying hard because I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up.

This was a big dream for a simple, African girl like me. I come from the Nuba tribe, in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, one of the remotest places on earth. I lived in a village of mud huts with grass-thatch roofs, nestled in a fold of the big hills. My tribe are all hunters and farmers and most of them are Muslims. My father had a herd of fifty cattle, which meant that he wasnt a rich man, but he wasnt poor either.

After a days hard study at school, I came home and did my chores. Then my mother cooked the evening meal. My father had been out in the fields getting the harvest in and my brothers had been helping him, so they were all very hungry. When we had finished eating, we went out into the yard to listen to my fathers stories. I remember sitting around the fire in the yard laughing and laughing. He was a very funny man, my father, a real joker. I loved all my family dearly.

It was a cold night so we did not stay out for long. I went to bed as I always did, cuddling up to my father. There was a fire burning in the middle of the hut to keep us warm all night long. My little cat Uran curled up on my tummy. My mother lay on her bed, across the fire from us. Soon, we were all fast asleep. But we hadnt been sleeping long when, suddenly, there was a terrible commotion outside. I woke up, startled, to see an eerie, orange light flickering over the inside of the hut.

Ook tom gua! my father shouted, jumping up. Fire! Fire in the village!

We ran to the doorway to see flames reaching skyward toward the far end of the village. At first, we thought that someone must have accidentally set their hut alight. It did happen quite often in our village. But then, we caught sight of people running among the huts with flaming torches in their hands. I saw them throwing these firebrands onto hut roofs, which burst into flames. The people inside came running out, but they were attacked by these men and dragged to the ground.