The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
Written by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
Narrated by Robin Miles
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
"The plot provided by the universe was filled with starvation, war and rape. I would not—could not—live in that tale."
Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive.
When Clemantine was twelve, she and her sister were granted refugee status in the United States; there, in Chicago, their lives diverged. Though their bond remained unbreakable, Claire, who had for so long protected and provided for Clemantine, was a single mother struggling to make ends meet, while Clemantine was taken in by a family who raised her as their own. She seemed to live the American dream: attending private school, taking up cheerleading, and, ultimately, graduating from Yale. Yet the years of being treated as less than human, of going hungry and seeing death, could not be erased. She felt at the same time six years old and one hundred years old.
In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine provokes us to look beyond the label of "victim" and recognize the power of the imagination to transcend even the most profound injuries and aftershocks. Devastating yet beautiful, and bracingly original, it is a powerful testament to her commitment to constructing a life on her own terms.
Related to The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Related audiobooks
Going to Wings: A Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Is What America Looks Like by Ilhan Omar: key Takeaways, Summary & Analysis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Epiphany of Grace: A Memoir by David Pierson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCoolamon Girl Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe People of Ostrich Mountain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Rip in Heaven Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Want-Ad Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Ruth J. Simmons's Up Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Color of Family: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmoke, Mirrors, and Murder: And Other True Cases Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Tapestry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women of Hope: African Americans Who Made a Difference Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Once Upon an Effing Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Passion, Obsession & Revenge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCompared to What Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Way It Would Become: Prequel to The Lord of Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrossing the River Sorrow: One Nurse's Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flee the Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Able McLaughlins (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDestiny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mexican Hooker #1: Art, Love and Forgiveness After Trauma Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother's Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Personal Memoirs For You
The Woman in Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making It So: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Summer of Fall: Gravity is a bitch, but I'm still standing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angela's Ashes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Lucy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Girl Who Smiled Beads
31 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heartbreaking, human, sad. If children around the world were required to read this, there Would be no wars.