Girl Who Escaped Isis: This Is My Story

A “harrowing but crucial” (Glamour) firsthand account of the terror inflicted by ISIS on young Iraqi Yazidi women sold into sexual slavery, and an inspiring personal story of bravery and resilience in the face of unspeakable horrors.Farida Khalaf was a young Yazidi woman living a normal, sheltered life in northern Iraq during the summer of 2014 when her entire world was upended: her village was attacked by ISIS. All of the men in her town were killed and the women were taken into slavery. In unprecedented detail, Farida describes her world as it was—at nineteen, she was living at home with her brothers and parents, finishing her schooling and looking forward to becoming a math teacher—and the nightmare it became. Held in a slave market in Syria and sold into the homes of several ISIS soldiers, she stubbornly attempted resistance at every turn. Farida is ultimately brought to an ISIS training camp in the middle of the desert, where she plots an against-all-odds escape for herself and five other girls. An astonishing firsthand account of life in captivity and a courageous flight to freedom, this “compelling testament to the suffering of ordinary people” (The Guardian) is also Farida’s way of bearing witness, and of ensuring that ISIS does not succeed in crushing her spirit. As #1 New York Times bestselling author Ahmed Rashid affirms, “Everyone should read this in order to get to the heart of the tragedy of the Arab world.” Farida’s unrelenting bravery, resilience, and hope in the face of unimaginable violence will fascinate and inspire.