I Choose My Beginning : A Story of Courage and Activism

From the Nobel Prize Winner, author of The Last Girl, comes an inspiring new story. Nadia Murad, a young Iraqi woman has made the powerful decision to define herself not as victim of war crime, but as an activist for women, rallying particularly against Conflict-related Sexual Violence with the backing of supporters such as Amal Clooney. She tells of finding a voice, an education and love.

Nadia Murad told the shocking account of how she and thousands of other Yazidi women in Iraq were kidnapped by ISIS militants and sold into slavery in 2014. Her daring escape from her captor in Mosul, her determination to alert the world to this injustice and her subsequent campaign for the release of other women formed her memoir, The Last Girl.

Now, living between America and Germany, and free of those who sought to control her and her message after her escape, Nadia Murad has graduated from an American university with a degree in Sociology and, despite some opposition, married her love, Abid, a human rights advocate and a former translator and advisor with the American military in Iraq.

I Choose My Beginning , a powerful journey and a quest to transform her experience from oppression and silence into one of strength and perseverance - and even joy -- takes readers into the courtrooms where survivors of CRSV fight for justice, classrooms where children learn to live in war zones, and camps where refugees grapple with uncertain futures. We witness the first successful convictions of genocide against ISIS members and meet other activists and survivors of CRSV. We visit the Nadia''s home village, still standing a decade after the genocide, and witness as she rebuilds a new home, one defined by love and ideals, not by religion or nationality.

And Nadia tells the stories of her loved ones -- those who survived and those who did not -- who are the inspiration for her life''s work.

Nadia''s organization, Nadia''s Initiative, has helped to rebuild parts of Iraq - including women''s centers, and a hospital; rebuilt hundreds of Yazidi farms and wells; designed and opened a memorial where there was once a mass grave - showing that war refugees, given the chance, can return home. Nadia herself has become a leader in the worldwide movement to treat CRSV as a war crime, building a community of survivors, once silenced, that grows louder and stronger with every word.


The Last Girl was the memoir of a survivor of unspeakable crimes; I Choose My Beginning tells the story of an extraordinary young woman, passionately writing her own life.