An "outstandingly dramatic and moving" memoir of fleeing a brutal girlhood in Somalia—and becoming a supermodel and UN special ambassador (Kirkus Reviews).
To escape an arranged marriage to a sixty-year-old man, Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali...

"Warm, witty, imaginative. . . . This is a rich and winning book."—The New Yorker

From Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most important African American writers of the twentieth century, comes her riveting autobiography—now available in a limited Olive Edition.

First published in 1942 at the height of her popularity, Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston's candid, funny, bold, and poignant autobiography—an

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"Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and a mother, a sister and a friend. I am an observer of human...

""My entire life I have been less fat and more fat, but never not fat." According to family lore, when Rabia Chaudry's family returned to Pakistan for their first visit since moving to the United States, two-year-old Rabia was more than just a pudgy toddler. Dada Abu, her fit and sprightly grandfather, attempted to pick her up but had to put her straight back down, demanding of Chaudry's mother: "What have you done to her?" The answer was two full...

Born into slavery, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (ca. 1824-1907) rose to a position of respect as a talented dressmaker and designer to the political elite of Washington, D.C., and a confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In this unusual memoir, Keckley offers a rare, behind-the-scenes view of the formal and informal networks that African Americans established among themselves, as well as an insider's perspective of the men who made Civil War politics...

Zitkala-Ša finds that she can sing through her music, but also by writing stories and giving speeches and being an activist for Native American rights.

"How much do you know about Susan La Flesche Picotte? Find out the facts you need to know about the first American Indian to become a doctor. You'll learn about the early life, challenges, and major accomplishments of this important American"--

"This enthralling story of the making of an American is also a timely meditation on religion and culture. Beginning with a sweetly funny, moving account of an arranged marriage in Pakistan that would become a love match lasting forty years, Threading My Prayer Rug is the story of many journeys: from Pakistan to America, from which her husband-to-be returned to wed and collect her while he completed his medical residency; from masters candidate to...

"Describes the life and work of astronaut Ellen Ochoa"--

A biography of Sarah Breedlove Walker who, though born in poverty, pioneered in hair and beauty care products for black women and became a great financial success.