Beneath the Tamarind Tree

June 1, 2019

Award-winning journalist and CNN Africa correspondent Sesay sets out to "prick the world's conscience," detailing the kidnapping of 276 girls on April 14, 2014, from the Government Girls State School in Chibok, Nigeria, by members of the terrorist organization Boko Haram. Sesay provides an account of the girls' time in captivity, as related by members of the group of 21 girls freed in 2016. The author also narrates her own account against the backdrop of the Chibok girls' story, recalling the challenges inherent in navigating the rampant misogyny of Nigerian politics as a black, female reporter, while recounting her personal mission to see the Chibok girls reunited with their families, despite frequent challenges and setbacks. Sesay further sheds light on the events surrounding the rise of Boko Haram and its campaign against education, particularly women's education across the north of Nigeria, revealing the lack of reporting on African affairs beyond the continent and illuminating the role of African politics in the global arena. VERDICT Great for readers who want to learn more about African gender politics, the history of Boko Haram, and women in the media.--Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib., Miami

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Starred review from May 15, 2019
A longtime CNN Africa reporter delivers a close-up report on the Chibok girls, attempting to bring their story "full circle" and "resurrect public interest in this mass abduction." On April 14, 2014, the extremist group Boko Haram stormed into a predominately Christian school in Chibok, Nigeria, and kidnapped 276 schoolgirls. This event triggered worldwide press coverage, but as the months wore on and the girls didn't return home, the world's attention turned elsewhere. Fortunately, award-winning journalist Sesay--the former host of CNN Newsroom Live From Los Angeles who spent more than a decade reporting on Africa for the network--didn't forget this story, and she offers a compelling, empathetic tale that focuses on the lives of four of the Chibok girls and their immediate family members. The author, who grew up in Sierra Leone and Britain, intertwines her thoughts and feelings regarding the kidnapping with the history of the region, the political, social, and economic events that gave rise to Boko Haram, and the personal accounts of Priscilla, Dorcas, Mary, and Saa. Sesay's attention to detail places readers with the girls under a giant tamarind tree, one of their many naturally made prisons deep in the Sambisa forest, where they scrounged for food and water and fought off the constant demands of their captors to convert to Islam. Although many of the girls did convert and have not been heard from since, a greater portion remained steadfast in their Christian beliefs. The author also explains what the Nigerian government has done to find the missing girls. She notes that, in the beginning, many Nigerians believed the abduction was "no more than an elaborate hoax with political objectives." The joyous homecoming of 21 of the Chibok girls in 2016 prompted Sesay to compile her notes on this fascinating and emotionally charged telling of the girls' story, which will hopefully put those still missing back into the limelight. Rich details and dedicated, courageous reporting create a powerful tale of faith, love, and loss.

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Starred review from April 15, 2019
For nearly a decade, award-winning CNN anchor and correspondent Sesay covered hard-hitting stories from all around the world, but none affected her as deeply and as personally as the 2014 abduction in Nigeria of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants. Sesay's sustained and many-faceted inquiry has resulted in her first book and the first comprehensive chronicle of this brazen crime against educated girls.Born in England, Sesay spent much of her childhood in her parents' homeland, Sierra Leone, where her mother, like the kidnapped schoolgirls, was poor and at risk in a misogynistic society that discouraged girls from attending school. A "fierce feminist, Sesay's mother earned a PhD and achieved many firsts as a woman in academia and politics while supporting three children, one severely disabled, after her husband's death when Sesay was 12. In reflecting on how Boko Haram's assault against the girls was meant to silence them, Sesay writes, To deny females a voice is to take away their ability to challenge the very practices and norms that subjugate and harm them. Furthermore: the only reason I'm able to take this stance and speak up is due to the fact I've been empowered by education, and that I was born to an educated mother. Sesay's intensely focused reporting helped turn the kidnapping and disappearance of the schoolgirls into an international cause c�l�bre, involving such high-profile figures as First Lady Michelle Obama in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. But with no new developments in the case, Sesay found herself almost alone in her determined pursuit of the truth, her persistent inquiries into the inadequate response of the Nigerian government provoking enemies serious enough to necessitate the presence of a bodyguard. Finally, her zeal and fortitude led to her meeting the 21 traumatized girls who were unexpectedly released in October 2016. She subsequently accompanied them on their dangerous journey home and developed a unique rapport with four of the courageous survivors and their families.In enthralling and unnerving passages that vary from an incisive history of Boko Haram to scenes that could be torn from a demented terrorist thriller to moments of heart-wrenching emotion, Sesay fully recounts each stage of the ordeal. She vividly describes the parched earth Chibok region in northern Nigeria, where struggling Christian farming families, a vulnerable minority in a Muslim region, sent their ambitious and disciplined daughters to the only boarding school available to them, a rudimentary place without electricity, running water, or security. There Priscilla, Mary, Saa, and Dorcas, each committed to their faith, families, studies, and career aspirations, were diligently preparing for exams when the terrorists materialized in the dead of night and destroyed their world.Sesay conducted hundreds of hours of conversations to understand what happened in the chaos of the ambush and during the girls' long, brutal, often bizarre captivity. At one point, the Boko Haram took the terrified yet resourceful and increasingly resolute girls deep into the forest where they confined them beneath a colossal tamarind tree, a living prison. The men abused, starved, threatened, beat, and harangued the girls, trying to force the Christian students to convert to Islam and marry militants. The young women banded together and resisted with prayers, valor, wit, and extraordinary strength.Peabody Award-winning Sesay's narrative is not only dramatically informative, it is also brilliantly structured, commandingly eloquent, and profoundly empathic. Her resounding and awed account of the girls' personalities, convictions, hopes, and achievements will...