Blood Stains

Blood Stains, a best-seller in France, is a Diaspora memoir about growingup in a traditional family in Senegal and emigration to Paris. Its feistyprotagonist, Khady, suffers genital mutilation at age seven, a brutal ritethat entails lifelong distress, sexual trauma and harrowing childbirths.Married off at thirteen to a man two decades older, the teenager bears fivechildren, and, as a battered wife, blows the whistle on an immigrantcommunity that serves men's interests. Not content to remain a victim, however, the young woman fights for education, earns an independent livingand becomes an activist. Her courageous battle against FGM as founder andpresident of the European Network brings her to the U.N. to urgeinternational support.