A review by fjette
Tears of the Desert: One Woman's True Story of Surviving the Horrors of Darfur by Halima Bashir

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

I’m not going to rate a memoir like this - it feels cheap. Overall, a beautiful portrait of life in Sudan and the ongoing conflict there. Was especially wrenching to read after having read “Who Gets Believed” and having a glimpse of how asylum decisions are made. I thought this was an excellent, warm, moving story. The only qualm I had was that the way broad groups were stereotyped - Arab and Somali people, specifically - was troubling. I can’t imagine what Bashir has gone through and won’t pretend to understand, but dehumanizing entire populations is a concerning thing to legitimize.