I Choose My Beginning : A Story of Courage and Activism

Nadia is a fierce warrior for justice and a beautiful human being I feel privileged to know. She will inspire women for generations. Amal Clooney

In a lyrical and profoundly moving memoir, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girl and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nadia Murad reclaims her extraordinary journey from ISIS captivity to becoming a global human rights activist, from the embers of devastation to a fight for freedomand for what comes next when a young girls flame cannot be extinguished.

In 2014, Nadia Murad was living in northern Iraq when her world was shattered. Fighters from the so-called Islamic State attacked her village, massacring hundredsincluding her mother and six of her brothersand forcing her, along with thousands of Yazidi women and girls, into ISISs system of sexual slavery. Her life since then has been split in two. In one she is a global symbol of courage a survivor and activist who has stood before world leaders to demand justice. In the other, she is a woman learning how to be a friend, a student, a wife; a woman rediscovering ordinary joy.

In I Choose My Beginning, Nadia brings these two selves together. With honesty and grace, she transforms the pain of her past into a life defined not by what was done to her, but by strength, perseverance, and the freedom to choose happiness. From reshaping international law to building a life filled with friendship and love, Nadia carries the memory of those she lost and those who survived. Their presence reminds herand all of usthat she has always been more than a victim.

Powerful and deeply inspiring, I Choose My Beginning is the story of an extraordinary woman reclaiming her humanityand showing that survival is not the end of the story. It is the beginning.