Gogo Mama by Sally Sara

I'm sitting in a $30 hotel room in Uganda wondering what the hell I've got myself into. This is day one of GOGO MAMA. I don't even know all the names of the twelve women who will fill this book; only the journey will reveal them.

Gogo Mama is a journey of discovery into the lives of a dozen very different African women. They include the survivor of a brutal attack by Ugandan rebels; an Egyptian belly dancer turned movie star; an escapee from slavery in Ghana; Zanzibar's most famous living diva; a former child soldier from Liberia; a grandmother fighting AIDS in South Africa; and a pioneering midwife from Timbuktu. They speak with complete candour both about their astonishing experiences and about the way they live now, in some of the most hostile and exotic parts of the continent.

While introducing these inspiring women, award-winning journalist Sally Sara takes us on a trip across Africa, in all its complexity -- from the frenetic townships of Johannesburg, to a clifftop village in Mali; from the horror of the frontline of war in the Sudan, to the glamour of Ciaro nightclubs.

Gogo Mama is a vivid, illuminating and haunting composite picture of an extraordinary land, in the words of the people who know it best.

Genres: Nonfiction - Africa - Memoir