Tears of the Desert

June 2, 2008
Two physicians bring women’s issues in Darfur and Saudi Arabia into the examining room.
Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
Halima Bashir, with Damien Lewis
. Ballantine
, $25 (336p) ISBN 978-0-345-50625-2

Writing with BBC correspondent Lewis (Slave
), Bashir, a physician and refugee living in London, offers a vivid personal portrait of life in the Darfur region of Sudan before the catastrophe. Doted on by her father, who bucked tradition to give his daughter an education, and feisty grandmother, who bequeathed a fierce independence, Bashir grew up in the vibrant culture of a close-knit Darfur village. (Its darker side emerges in her horrific account of undergoing a clitoridectomy at age eight.) She anticipated a bright future after medical school, but tensions between Sudan’s Arab-dominated Islamist dictatorship and black African communities like her Zaghawa tribe finally exploded into conflict. The violence the author recounts is harrowing: the outspoken Bashir endured brutal gang-rapes by government soldiers, and her village was wiped out by marauding Arab horsemen and helicopter gunships. This is a vehement cri de coeur—“I wanted to fight and kill every Arab, to slaughter them, to drive them out of the country,” the author thought upon treating girls who had been raped and mutilated—but in showing what she suffered, and lost, Bashir makes it resonate.

August 1, 2008
Bashirs story of her life in Darfur is difficult to readlargely because so much of it is ordinary. She recounts growing up in a loving family, attending school, and, with the strong support of her father, becoming a doctor. After she enters professional life, civil war comes to her doorstep, and her life is torn apart. She witnesses horrible suffering and is herself brutally treated by the Janjaweed, the armed militias fighting with the tacit approval of the Sudanese government. As a black African, Bashir recalls years of discrimination from ruling Arab Africans, but the spreading war accelerates the violence to epic and devastating levels. After fleeing to Britain, she finds herself in a new battle to prove that the nightmare in her country is real. Bashir is now a powerful voice for the victims of Darfur, speakingout on numerous painful subjects, from her own genital mutilation to rape and the loss of her family. Harsh in its honesty, Bashirschronicle isshocking and disturbing. An unforgettable tragedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 27, 2008
This astounding memoir by Sudanese doctor Bashir relates the harrowing account of Janjaweed Arab militias that attacked her Zaghawa village of in 2004 and raped 42 school girls and their teachers. Bashir was left with the unimaginable task of treating every young girl and woman while trying to keep her anger in check for fear of retaliation. Bashir’s stories are heartbreaking, and Rosalyn Landor captures the Sudanese dialect perfectly as well as the melancholy that abounds in Bashir’s written account. Landor brilliantly steps into Bashir’s shoes and assumes her identity so seamlessly that listeners will believe they are hearing it from the author herself. A One World hardcover (Reviews, June 6).

Starred review from December 22, 2008
Always outspoken (and so-called “Dr.”), Denis Leary returns with this hilarious look at sucking; why we suck, how not to suck and how to help others who suck become suck free. Pulling no punches, Leary storms his way through everything from skinny jeans being for skinny people to vegetarians, and never fails to make listeners laugh out loud. Reading in his trademark self-deprecating and hard-nosed manner, Leary plows through his book at such a strong and commanding speed that listeners will think his well-polished rants are off-the-cuff. Leary is almost performing stand-up; his tone is so unrelenting and unabashed that listeners will beg for more. A Viking hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 15).