I Choose My Beginning

Nadia Murad, a young Iraqi woman now living in America, 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.In 2014, 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. 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, free of those who sought to control her and her message after her escape, Nadia Murad has graduated with a degree in Sociology and married her love, Abid, a Yazidi and former translator with the American military in Iraq.I Choose My Beginning is a powerful quest to transform her experience from oppression and silence into one of strength, perseverance and even joy. It takes readers into the courtrooms where, along with her lawyer and good friend Amal Clooney, we witness the first successful convictions of genocide against ISIS members. We visit the homes where Yazidis are rebuilding their lives as refugees. We follow her to meetings with world leaders and survivors of CRSV. We listen as 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.The Last Girl was the memoir of a victim of unspeakable crimes; I Choose My Beginning tells the story of an extraordinary young woman, passionately writing her own life.