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The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir
Current price:
$35.99
Publication Date: June 2nd, 2020
Publisher:
Brilliance Audio
ISBN:
9781721366378
Pages:
0
At the age of five, Wayetu Moore and her family were forced to flee Liberia on foot in the midst of a brutal civil war. As Wayetu’s father and elders attempt to get her and her sisters to safety by traversing a deadly and unforgiving landscape, Wayetu’s mother, who is attending college in New York, waits to hear from her family — until she can wait no longer. Moore makes brilliant creative choices with structure, voice, and point of view in this deeply moving, lovingly crafted, and unique memoir. Her story is both a thoughtful examination of the emigrant experience and an inspiring testament to the incredible power of familial love.
June 2020 Indie Next List
Description
FINALIST FOR THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY
An engrossing memoir of escaping the First Liberian Civil War and building a life in the United States
When Way tu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States.
Spanning this harrowing journey in Moore's early childhood, her years adjusting to life in Texas as a black woman and an immigrant, and her eventual return to Liberia, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore has a novelist's eye for suspense and emotional depth, and this unforgettable memoir is full of imaginative, lyrical flights and lush prose. In capturing both the hazy magic and the stark realities of what is becoming an increasingly pervasive experience, Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family.
