The Power of Women

June 1, 2021

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mukwege, a gynecological surgeon in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is famed worldwide for his support and treatment of women raped during armed conflict. (His work has taken him to South Korea, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as other countries in Africa.) Here he explains the need to better support survivors, shatter taboos regarding assault, understand why wartime sexual violence is often disregarded and how Western involvement can perpetuate it, and build a more positive masculinity. He also uses the voices of those he has worked with to persuade other survivors that they, too, will be able to move forward. With a 125,000-copy first printing.

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October 4, 2021
Mukwege, a Nobel Prize–winning Congolese gynecologist specializing in rape injuries, debuts with a harrowing look at sexual violence in Congo and other conflict zones and a stirring call to combat the stigmatization of rape victims around the world. A child during the chaotic early days of Congo’s independence in the 1960s, Mukwege’s career was profoundly affected by escalating violence between Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups and the First and Second Congo Wars from 1996 to 1998. To help treat women who had been sexually violated and abused during those conflicts, Mukwege developed a mental health–centered approach at the hospital he founded in 1999, and, in 2011, joined forces with V (formerly known as Eve Ensler) to open City of Joy, a treatment center where women are given counseling and support after suffering sexual assault. Mukwege also recounts the efforts of the Congolese government to silence him, and the threats and assassination attempts he has faced for trying to garner international attention for the plight of women in his home country, and details practical methods for educating boys and men about the scourge of sexual violence and rooting out misogynist attitudes in patriarchal cultures. This is a vital record of the suffering and resilience of Congolese women and a powerful exhortation to dismantle rape culture.

Starred review from September 15, 2021
The Congolese gynecologist who won the 2018 Nobel Prize for aiding rape victims during the civil wars in his country depicts his inspiring journey. A self-proclaimed feminist who often has to justify his chosen profession and life's work to officers at the U.N. and elsewhere, Mukwege offers an impassioned argument for women's health care and basic universal human rights. He bases the narrative on his experiences with the ravages of war, colonization, poverty, and ignorance in his own country. The author opens in his hometown of Bukavu, near the border with Rwanda. He chronicles his childhood with parents who largely eschewed the traditional roles ascribed to boys and girls, roles that devalued women's work in the home and fields. Once he began to work with patients, Mukwege soon recognized the enormous need for women's health care in a country with few medical doctors but high maternal and child mortality rates. After training in France, he returned to direct a hospital and then build another one in the countryside to address the catastrophic toll of rape during the civil wars that began in the late 1990s. Mukwege became an expert in obstetric fistula, and thousands of women came to him for life-saving treatment after suffering sexual violence. In his moving account of his courageous work, the author spares no detail, demonstrating the indispensable assistance he and his colleagues provided to traumatized survivors. As he writes, he sought out this work in order to combat the stigmatization and isolation of rape victims, despite the threat of death to himself and his family. "Breaking the silence about sexual violence in all its forms--harassment, rape, incest--is the essential first step in tackling the problem," he writes. All along, he argues forcefully for the necessity of changing the education and mindsets of men throughout the world. An important, deeply affecting account of the invaluable work of a devoted humanitarian.

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