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The Girl with Three Legs: A Memoir Hardcover – October 1, 2011


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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Chicago Review Press (October 1, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1569767130
  • ISBN-13: 978-1569767139
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,230,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“In her searing memoir, Miré brings a face and a forgiving, inspiring voice to the horrors of female genital mutilation (FGM).” —More


“Miré’s personal, passionate, and persuasive rejection of any cultural defense of female genital mutilation makes compelling reading . . . Her “mission of speaking out to end the abuse of girls” is well served by her heartfelt account.”
—Publishers Weekly


“Readers will be caught by the urgency of the contemporary cause, rooted in the anguish of one brave woman.” —Booklist


“[A] harrowing yet inspiring memoir.” —Bust


“Stunning and excruciating yet lyrical. . . . Miré feels driven to save a younger generation from the violence that changed her life. This book—I guarantee it—will change yours.” —Tobe Levin, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, and coeditor of Empathy and Rage: Female Genital Mutilation in African Literature



“I could not put this book down. . . . Miré is unstoppable. She does not spare anyone: not herself, not her family, not her culture. . . . The book is an ode to female courage and healing against high odds; it is about the high cost of that courage, which includes being ostracized, death-threatened, impoverished, and treated as a ‘crazy’ woman when she is at her sanest and most heroic.”—Phyllis Chesler, clinical psychologist, feminist icon, and bestselling author of Women and Madness, Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, and Mothers on Trial



“Quite simply, amazing. Soraya Miré puts a beautiful face on the tragedy of female genital mutilation and chronicles so clearly why we all, women and men alike, need to hold hands and end the mutually destructive practice of FGM.”—Marci L. Bowers, MD, gynecology, pelvic and reconstructive surgery, surgical reversion of FGM



“I recall how Soraya was attacked inside the UN by male African delegates after testifying about FGM. An arm slashed out past the hand-stitched lapels and elegant garments of other delegates, smacking Soraya’s shoulder. The man’s eyes burned with hate: How dare she testify about FGM! How dare she not!” —Wilda Spalding, president, International Human Rights Consortium

About the Author

The recipient of the UN's Humanitarian Award, Soraya Miré is a human rights activist, a filmmaker, and a spokesperson against female genital mutilation. She wrote, directed, and produced the film Fire Eyes, the definitive film on FGM. Miré appeared in The Vagina Monologues in London, on Broadway, in Madison Square Garden, and in Los Angeles; she has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and other programs; and articles about her have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Essence.

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
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See all 11 customer reviews
Every American should read this book.
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D.
This is a powerful memoir that really opens your eyes to the treatment of girls and women in other cultures.
LizzyMayhem
Despite the heavy topic matter, the book is very personal, and I instantly felt for Soraya.
Majanka

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful By AvidReader47 on September 15, 2011
Format: Hardcover
The Girl with Three Legs by Soraya Mire is a very disturbing account of living with FGM (female genital mutilation). Soraya grew up in Somali where she is constantly taunted by her classmates as "the girl with three legs." Not knowing what this meant, she asks her mother and older sisters. Soraya's mother decides at the age of 13 that Soraya should receive "her gift." Thinking that she was going shopping for a new dress, her mother takes her to "the man in white" and they cut and seal up her female parts which are only to be opened back up again by her future husband. Soraya suffers from considerable pain for years afterwards. Her mother again betrays her and gives her to her abusive cousin for an arranged marriage. Soraya is scared, alone, and feels like a prisoner in her own body. She finally takes charge of her life and decides to get corrective surgery. She has since become an inspiration to both women and young girls who have also become a victim of this senseless tradition. The Girl with Three Legs will leave you wondering how many throughout the world have to live with this. Very inspirational and heartbreaking. Received courtesy of Net Galley.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful By jofjones on December 25, 2011
Format: Hardcover
The author's work helped pass a law making this kind of abuse illegal in the US. The book provides a horrifying and graphic picture of her suffering and that of girls/women who have undergone this "traditional" treatment. The writer also details her emotional suffering after being betrayed by her mother in more than one instance.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful By G. J. Hartley on January 22, 2012
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book is an intensely personal story that shows how Soraya chose to become a survivor, not just another victim, of genital cutting. Time and time again, she overcomes extremely difficult circumstances and dedicates her life to speaking out for bodily integrity. As a fellow survivor of genital mutilation, I applaud her passionate and tireless efforts.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful By J. Steven Svoboda on November 30, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Soraya Mire, longtime toiler in the trenches to help educate the world about the harm caused by female genital cutting (FGC), has published her biography. The author, who has also made clear her opposition to male circumcision, has come up with a truly remarkable book, for a number of reasons.

The Girl with Three Legs centrally addresses the author's pivotal, supremely traumatic experience with FGC and her subsequent dedication of her life to working to help stop it. Mire does a masterful job of avoiding many of the pitfalls that afflicted several previously published memoirs by victims of genital cutting. Her authorial voice is clear, vibrant, and remarkably engaging considering the grimness of many of her life experiences. One of the secrets to the unique success of her memoir is her willingness to show herself in all her imperfections, as a human being worthy of love who nevertheless has suffered cruelly. Moreover, while the book does centrally address her experience with FGC and her subsequent dedication of her life to the goal of educating the world about its evils, it is down to earth and accessible. The author brings us into her world and makes us feel she is engaging us in a personal conversation.

Mire manages this impressive feat by exhibiting a candidness in her reflection on her past experiences that further accentuates the trustworthiness and power of her story while at the same time exposing herself as having been a remarkably naïve young woman.
Read more ›
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful By Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D. on August 11, 2014
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book stopped my heart. It kept me up until three in the morning. It changed my life.

It is the true life story of Soraya Miré, whose mother told her she was going to give her a "gift," when she was thirteen. From a big noisy family in Somalia, Soraya was so happy to be out alone shopping with her mom. She thought she was getting a new dress.

Instead her mother brought her to a doctor and helped hold her down while her clitorus was excised and her labia were sewn tightly together.

Her gift was to be genitally mutilated. The doctor showed her mother the excised clitoris. "Perfect," her mother said. And then it was fed to some dogs.

It's so sad and so painful. So many young women, and young girls, go through this horrific and debilitating process. And then poor Soraya had to experience, over and over again, the humiliation: with doctors in Europe who had never seen such mutilated genitalia, when she was raped by a Somali man who was angry at her for speaking out against cultural traditions (and thought what she needed was a good hard f**k), and when she wrote this brave, beautiful, devastating memoir detailing what happened to her.

Every American should read this book.

Every African should read this book.

Female genital mutilation has got to be stopped.

Thank you, Soraya Miré, for braving cultural disapproval, death threats, and rape to speak your truth and tell your story.

Thank you for making the documentary "Fire Eyes."

I am glad you are shouting from the rooftops about the oppression and mutilation of women and girls.

The time is now for this barbarism to end.
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