Traces the inspiring story of Syrian refugee Nujeen Mustafa, who after being born with cerebral palsy and denied an education because of her disability made a harrowing journey by wheelchair from her war-ravaged home to safety in Germany
"An inspiring tale of a young disabled girl and her escape from the hell of war. Nujeen Mustafa has cerebral palsy and cannot walk. This did not stop her braving inconceivable odds to travel in her wheelchair from Syria in search of a new life. Sharing her full story for the first time, Nujeen recounts the details of her childhood and disability, as well as the specifics of her harrowing journey across the Mediterranean to Greece and finally to Germany to seek an education and the medical treatment she needs. Nujeen's story has already touched millions and in this book written with Christina Lamb, bestselling co-author of I Am Malala', she helps to put a human face on a global emergency. Trapped in a fifth floor apartment in Aleppo and unable to go to school, she taught herself to speak English by watching US television. As civil war between Assad's forces and ISIS militants broke out around them, Nujeen and her family fled first to her native Kobane, then Turkey before they joined thousands of displaced persons in a journey to Europe and asylum. She wanted to come to Europe, she said, to become an astronaut, to meet the Queen and to learn how to walk. In her strong, positive voice, Nujeen tells the story of what it is really like to be a refugee, to have grown up in a dictatorship only for your life to be blighted by war; to have left a beloved homeland to become dependent on others. It is the story of our times told through the incredible bravery of one remarkable girl determined to keep smiling." --Publisher's description
Now in paperback: The inspiring true story of Nujeen Mustafa - a teenage Syrian refugee who survived the perilous journey to Germany in order to seek the cerebral palsy treatment and education she was denied in her home country - co-written by prize-winning correspondent and co-author of New York Times bestseller I Am Malala, Christina Lamb.
Was bedeutet es wirklich, ein Flüchtling zu sein, durch den Krieg frühzeitig erwachsen werden zu müssen, die geliebte Heimat hinter sich zu lassen und vom Wohlwollen anderer abhängig zu sein? Die sechzehnjährige Nujeen erzählt, wie der syrische Krieg eine stolze Nation zerstört, Familien auseinander reißt und Menschen zur Flucht zwingt. In Nujeens Fall zu einer Reise durch neun Länder, in einem Rollstuhl. Doch es ist auch die Geschichte einer willensstarken jungen Frau, die in Aleppo durch eine Krankheit ans Haus gefesselt ist und sich mit amerikanischen Seifenopern Englisch beibringt, weil sie die starke Hoffnung auf ein besseres Leben hat. Eine Hoffnung, die sich nun vielleicht fern der Heimat in Deutschland erfüllen kann. Es ist die Geschichte von Flucht, dem Verlust der Heimat, die Geschichte unserer Zeit - erzählt von einer bemerkenswert tapferen Syrerin, die nie aufgehört hat, zu lächeln. „Wer würde dieses Mädchen nicht in seinem Land haben wollen?“ US TV-Moderator John Oliver über Nujeen