How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child
SynopsisPlot
This profoundly moving memoir is the remarkable and inspiring true story of Sandra Uwiringiyimana, a girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who tells the tale of how she survived a massacre, immigrated to America, and overcame her trauma through art and activism. Sandra was just ten years old when she found herself with a gun pointed at her head. She had watched as rebels gunned down her mother and six-year-old sister in a refugee camp. Remarkably, the rebel didn’t pull the trigger, and Sandra escaped. Thus began a new life for her and her surviving family members. With no home and no money, they struggled to stay alive. Eventually, through a United Nations refugee program, they moved to America, only to face yet another ethnic disconnect. Sandra may have crossed an ocean, but there was now a much wider divide she had to overcome. And it started with middle school in New York.
Story
About this book
Sandra Uwiringiyimana was ten years old when armed rebels attacked the refugee camp where her family was sheltering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During the assault, her mother and six-year-old sister were killed. Sandra survived after a rebel pointed a gun at her head but did not fire. The memoir opens with these events and follows what came after: displacement, the loss of almost everything familiar, and the slow work of staying alive with her remaining family members.
With no home or resources, the family eventually resettled in the United States through a United Nations refugee program. Arriving in America did not end the difficulties. Sandra faced a new kind of isolation, navigating ethnic identity and cultural distance as a young teenager starting middle school in New York. The gap between her past and her new surroundings posed its own challenges, separate from the violence she had already experienced.
The book traces how Sandra began to process her trauma through art and activism, finding ways to speak publicly about the Congolese communities affected by ongoing conflict. It is a firsthand account of forced migration, adaptation, and the long process of rebuilding a sense of self in unfamiliar circumstances.
