Rwandan-Canadian author Alpha Nkuranga will publish her powerful memoir about surviving domestic violence Born to Walk in fall 2024 with Goose Lane Editions.

According to Publisher’s Marketplace, Nkuranga’s book is a “memoir of resilience, resistance, and a refusal to conform to cultural expectations.” It is a story of the “barriers facing young women and girls in Africa, and the way one unlikely hero fought through them to find a life more suitable for a survivor.”

Alpha Nkuranga was born in Rwanda, escaped to a Tanzanian refugee camp, and eventually journeyed to her new life in Canada. She is now a Residential Support Worker at Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region and a writer.

In this podcast, Nkuranga talks about experiencing domestic violence as a child and the violence she endured while living in a Tanzanian refugee camp during the Rwandan civil war. She survived these unbearable circumstances by dressing up in trousers like a boy to prevent the possibility of sexual violence, which she saw the other girls in the camp being subjected to.

Nkuranga remarks in the podcast episode:

There was no one who was there for me. I knew I had to be there for myself. I knew I had to do everything possible to fight for myself. There is one thing that I always tell myself. No matter what is going on, there is a day to cry and there is a day to laugh. I knew whatever I was going through was not going to be permanent.

Nkuranga’s memoir will highlight the gender-based violence that women refugees often have to go through on top of the devastating circumstances they are in already. We hope that other women going through similar situations can read this memoir and find hope in Nkuranga’s story.

Congrats to Nkuranga on her debut memoir!