Features

Global Human Rights Activist NADIA MURAD Awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

Her harrowing and inspiring memoir THE LAST GIRL: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State To be published in paperback by Tim Duggan Books on October 16th

Praise for THE LAST GIRL

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

 “This devastating memoir unflinchingly recounts Murad’s experiences and questions the complicity of witnesses who acquiesced in the suffering of others.”
—The New Yorker

 “Her book is sobering—and an inspiration.”
—People

 “A harrowing memoir . . . Intricate in historical context . . . The Last Girl leaves readers with urgent, incendiary questions.”
—The New York Times Book Review

 “Murad gives us a window on the atrocities that destroyed her family and nearly wiped out her vulnerable community. This is a courageous memoir that serves as an important step toward holding to account those who committed horrific crimes.”
—Washington Post

 “This is likely the most inspiring feminist memoir out this year.”
—Bustle

 “Nadia Murad’s courageous account is horrific and essential reading. . . . Anyone who wants to understand the so-called Islamic State should read The Last Girl.”
—The Economist

 

Nadia Murad has given a face and voice to the thousands who have suffered unspeakable crimes carried out by the Islamic State. For her tireless work, Nadia has been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. At twenty-five, she is the second-youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize after fellow activist Malala Yousafzai. Of Nadia, the Nobel committee has said “She refused to accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses to which they have been subjected. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.”

A survivor of the Islamic State–led genocide of the Yazidi people, Nadia captured the world’s attention with her devastatingly powerful story and unparalleled bravery. Recipient of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize and the Sakharov Prize, and the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, she has worked tirelessly with famed barrister Amal Clooney to prosecute the Islamic State for their crimes. “Being a survivor of genocide comes with great responsibility—for I am the lucky one,” Nadia says. “Having lost many family members and friends, it is a responsibility I embrace fully and take very seriously. My role as an activist is not just about my suffering—it is about a collective suffering.”

On October 16, 2018, Tim Duggan Books will publish the paperback of Nadia’s memoir, THE LAST GIRL: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, with a foreword by Amal Clooney. THE LAST GIRL is a continuation of her mission to share her heartbreaking personal tragedy with the world in the hope of stopping the Islamic State and holding them accountable for their atrocities.

Nadia was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.

On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia’s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.

Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.

Today, Nadia’s story—as a witness to the Islamic State’s brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi—has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. THE LAST GIRL is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.

THE LAST GIRL
By Nadia Murad
Tim Duggan Books • October 16, 2018 • ISBN 978-1-5247-6044-1 • $16.00
Also available as an ebook and on audio
www.NadiaMurad.org