num_pages: 238
description: Waris Dirie is a remarkable woman whose spirit is as breathtaking as her beauty. She lives a double life - by day she is an internationally famous model and a spokesperson on women's rights in Africa - at night she dreams of her native Somalia. Waris Dirie (whose name means desert flower), was one of twelve children born into a traditional family of tribal desert nomads in East Africa. She remembers her early childhood as carefree - running with her brothers, racing camels - until it came her turn to meet the old woman who administered the ancient custom imposed on most Somalian girls: circumcision. Waris suffered this torture when she was just five years old. Then at the age of twelve, when her father arranged her marriage with a sixty-year-old stranger in exchange for five camels - she ran away. After a death-defying escape through the dangerous Somalian desert she travelled to London and worked as a maid for the Somalian ambassador, until his family returned home. Penniless, and with little English, she started working as a janitor in McDonalds where she was famously discovered by a fashion photographer.
language: English
title: DESERT FLOWER
titlecomplete: DESERT FLOWER
genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, Womens, Somalia, Feminism, Autobiography, Contemporary, Biography Memoir, Africa
ratings_count: 32799
places: Mogadishu, Somalia
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Corine Internationaler Buchpreis
category: Sachbuch
publisher: VIRAGO PRESS