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The true story of a beekeeper who risks his life to rescue enslaved women from DaeshSince 2014, Daesh (ISIS) has been brutalizing the Yazidi people of northern Iraq: sowing destruction, killing those who won't convert to Islam, and enslaving young girls and women.The Beekeeper, by the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail, tells the harrowing stories of several women who managed to escape the clutches of Daesh. Mikhail extensively interviews these women -- who've lost their families and loved ones, who've been sexually abused, psychologically tortured, and forced to manufacture chemical weapons -- and as their tales unfold, an unlikely hero emerges: a beekeeper, who uses his knowledge of the local terrain, along with a wide network of transporters, helpers, and former cigarette smugglers, to bring these women, one by one, through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, back into safety.In the face of inhuman suffering, this powerful work of nonfiction offers a counterpoint to Daesh's genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk their own lives to save those of others.



About the Author

Dunya Mikhail

Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi-American writer. Her honors include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kresge Fellowship, Arab American Book Award, Griffin shortlist, and UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of writing. Renowned for her subversive, innovative, and satirical poetry, Mikhail speaks about her experiences growing up in a war-torn country, sleeping on the roof of her family's home during the sweltering summers until the air raid sirens sounded. In an interview with NPR, Mikhail said, "I still feel that poetry is not medicine--it's an X-ray. It helps you see the wound and understand it. We all feel alienated because of this continuous violence in the world. We feel alone, but we feel also together. So we resort to poetry as a possibility for survival. However, to say I survived is not so final. We wake up to find that the war survived with us."



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