Don't Tell Me You're Afraid

June 13, 2016
In this novel based on real events, 21-year-old Olympic runner Samia Yusuf Omar set off to reach freedom in Italy via the Mediterranean Sea in 2012. It is the final leg of a nearly year-and-a-half-long journey from her home in the war-torn city of Mogadishu, the last five months of which she spent at the mercy of human traffickers. In Catozzella’s novel, Samia hopes she could make it to her older sister’s home in Helsinki with enough time to train and qualify for the 2012 London Olympics and “lead Somali women to liberation from the bondage in which men have placed them.” The novel begins in 1999, when Samia is eight years old, and the simply drawn yet moving text explores each milestone in the aspiring runner’s life, from her childhood friendship with Ali, whose family is from a rival clan, to her father’s murder by a member of the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab, to Samia’s thrilling voyage to China to compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The most intense and hard-to-stomach sections cover her grueling experiences as a tahrib, or exiled refuge, stranded first in Addis Ababa, then in villages and cities throughout Sudan and Libya, including the Sahara desert, before landing in Tripoli. Translated from Catozzella’s Italian, the book serves as a sobering reminder of the life-threatening challenges many modern migrants face in the pursuit of freedom.

June 1, 2016
A fictionalized account of the tragically brief life of Somali runner Samia Yusuf Omar, who represented her country at the 2008 Olympic Games.Catozzella writes in the first person as Samia, who dreams from a young age of becoming "the fastest runner in all of Mogadishu," despite the civil war ravaging her country. At 8 she begins training under her best friend Ali, and though they lack resources--Samia wears tattered running shoes passed down from older children--their resolve soon yields positive results. But after the extremist group Al-Shabaab gains power in Mogadishu, the challenges for Samia build: she is forced to cover herself in a burka and train in secret; Ali's family flees; and Samia's father is murdered in a crowded market. Still, Samia's skill and determination propel her all the way to the 2008 Olympics. An unexpected encounter back in Somalia, however, convinces Samia she has to leave the country if she hopes to continue running. The novel's transfixing final third follows Samia on her harrowing attempt to immigrate to Europe. She survives brutal traffickers and wildly inhumane conditions for more than a year but drowns in the Mediterranean in April 2012 on the last leg of her journey. The first-person narrative has its drawbacks--in an effort to give readers necessary context, some of the early dialogue can feel forced--but especially during Samia's migration, it gives the story a spirit and urgency that readers won't easily forget. Catozzella's novel is both an intimate portrait of a heroic young woman and a disturbing look at the horrors many migrants face today.

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June 1, 2016
Growing up in her Somalian community, wracked by poverty and civil war, Samia Yusuf Omar is a champion long-distance runner from age eight. Her dream is to run in the Olympics in Beijing and then in London. How will she get there? How will she pay for it? She does make it to Beijing in 2008. Based on a true story, this gripping first-person narrative tells how, despite harsh poverty and community repression, she is encouraged by her loving extended family, especially her older sister, and by her close friend Ali. Fundamentalists ask her where is her hijab, but her father wants her to be a warrior to lead Somali women to freedom. On her journey to the London Olympics in 2012, she makes the horrific migrant trek from Somalia through Sudan to Libya and to the Mediterranean, where the smugglers' overloaded boat on which she is traveling capsizes. The authors' final, heartbreaking note takes you back to the beginning and to her triumph, not of winning the race, but of the family's courageous daily struggle against brutal repression.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2016

Eight-year-old Somali Samia wants nothing more than to run and trains at night in a deserted stadium with best friend Ali as coach. Samia runs for her country at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but for the 2012 Olympics, with no support from her country, she must follow the migrants' route across the Mediterranean and Europe to get to London. Based on a true story, this best-selling novel won 12 awards in Catozzella's native Italy.

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