The ancient art of storytelling beguiles. Its importance and impact cannot be overstated. More than mere facts or data, stories convey the essence of our shared humanity, the raw emotions of daily living such as grief, hope, trust, loneliness, and love. A well-crafted story allows us to connect deeply with others, to find meaning, to inspire others, and, in moments, to bring about change. In the books featured below, talented women authors share their stories of determination, courage, and resilience in the face of persecution.
After the Exodus: Gender and Belonging in Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugee Camps
By Farhana Afrin Rahman
This powerful book delves into the experiences of Rohingya women who fled violence and persecution in Myanmar, seeking refuge in Bangladesh. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2017 and 2018, After the Exodus sheds light on the profound impact of displacement on gender roles, identity, and belonging within the Rohingya community. The author paints a vivid picture of how these women navigate the challenges of camp life, rebuild their lives, and forge a sense of normalcy amidst ongoing uncertainty.
Blasphemy: A Memoir: Sentenced to Death Over a Cup of Water
By Asia Bibi and Anne-Isabelle Tollet
In June 2009, a Pakistani mother of five, Asia Bibi, was picking fruit in the fields. At midday she went to the nearest well, picked up a cup, and took a drink of cool water, and then offered it to another woman. Suddenly, one of her fellow workers cried out that the water belonged to Muslim women and that Bibi—who is Christian—had contaminated it. “Blasphemy!” someone shouted, a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. In that instant, with one word, Bibi’s fate was to be sealed. First attacked by a mob, Bibi was then thrown into prison and sentenced to be hanged. But her story did not end there.
Captive In Iran: A Remarkable True Story of Hope and Triumph amid the Horror of Tehran’s Brutal Evin Prison
by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirzadeh
Islamic laws forbid sharing Christian beliefs. Maryam and Marziyeh knew they were risking their lives when they started two house churches and distributed 20,000 New Testaments. They were arrested in 2009 and held for 259 days in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. Two courageous women willing to live and die for their faith are the subjects of this inspiring story.
Daughters of Hope: Stories of Witness Courage in the Face of Persecution
By Kay Marshall Strom and Michele Rickett
In Pakistan, Christian girls are systematically kidnapped, tortured and raped. In China, underground church leaders are sent to labor camps for hosting illegal home meetings. In Sudan, Christian women are captured and sold into slavery or mutilated and left to die. And in many Muslim countries, a woman can be killed by her husband or father for converting to Christianity. In this deeply moving book, we learn of the stories of persecuted Christian women from around the world. From Africa to the Middle East to Asia, this book gives voice to women persevering under the yoke of oppression and injustice.
Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World
By Mahnaz Afkhami (Editor)
Over half a billion women live in the Muslim world. Despite the rich complexity of their social, cultural, and ethnic differences, they are often portrayed monolithically. Such stereotyping, fueled by the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, has negatively impacted Muslim women’s human rights. This book is the first detailed study to emphasize Muslim women’s human rights and explore the patriarchal structures and processes that maintain and reinforce women’s human rights being contradictory to Islam. The contributors focus on the ways and means to empower Muslim women to help them participate in the general socialization process and implement and evaluate public policy.
Gloria! The Archbishop’s Wife
By Abidemi Sanuse
Gloria Kwashi lives in Jos, Nigeria, in a region known as the Middle Belt. Gloria and her husband, Benjamin Kwashi – the Archbishop Emeritus of Jos, work in ministry, mediation, and peacebuilding. In her remarkable life, she has experienced many challenges including her home being burnt down and being raped and beaten by men sent to murder her husband. As a result of one of the beatings, she went blind, but surgery has restored her sight. Despite persecution, they adopted 300 children, most of whom suffered unspeakable trauma.
Hidden Sorrow, Lasting Joy: The Forgotten Women of the Persecuted Church
By Anneke Companjen
These are the stories of twenty women from around the world–all wives of men who are Christian martyrs or have been imprisoned for their faith. The women are from such places as Vietnam, China, and Iran. Their inspiring stories will raise awareness of this often-hidden subject.
How I Survived a Chinese “Reeducation” Camp: A Uyghur Woman’s Story
By Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Rozenn Morgat
Her name is Gulbahar Haitiwaji and she is the first Uyghur woman to write a memoir about the ‘reeducation’ camps. For three years, Haitiwaji endured hundreds of hours of interrogations, torture, hunger, police violence, brainwashing, forced sterilization, freezing cold, and nights under blinding neon light in her prison cell.
I Didn’t Survive: Emerging Whole After Deception, Persecution, and Hidden Abuse
by Nagmeh Abedinid Panahi
I Didn’t Survive is Naghmeh’s firsthand story, which takes you from war-torn Tehran to the quiet Midwestern U.S., and the halls of power in Washington D.C. It vividly describes the Islamic upbringing that shaped her, her unexpected conversion to Christianity, and the events that led to her marriage to Saeed Abedini, a magnetic pastor in the Iranian underground church.
Olya’s Story: A Survivor’s Personal and Dramatic Account of the Persecution of Baha’is in Revolutionary Iran
By Olya Roohizadegan
This detailed, eye-witness account of the persecution of Iran’s largest religious minority in the 1980s is the story of one woman’s experiences at the hands of the Iranian Revolutionaries. Amid the escalating pogrom, Olya Roohizadegan witnessed friends, neighbors, and relatives being imprisoned, tortured, and executed. For months, she visited the prisoners, comforted their relatives, found clothes and shelter for the homeless, and smuggled news and photographs out of Iran to the outside world. And then it was her turn.
Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah’ Witnesses during the Nazi Regime
Edited by Hans Hesse
Through 22 articles, 19 authors employ the latest research in Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Nazi Regime to highlight the multifaceted history of those prisoners in the Wewelsburg, Sachsenhausen and Moringen concentration camps. This volume includes a lens on the persecution of the female members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who made up the largest group of inmates in the female concentration camps up until the beginning of the Second World War; contributions that for the first time deal with the hitherto largely unknown history of the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses specifically in the GDR.
Rage Against the Veil: The Courageous Life and Death of an Islamic Dissident
by Parvin Darabi
Daribi’s sister and her son vividly recreate Dr. Homa Darabi’s childhood in Iran in the politically tempestuous ”50s and ”60s, a time of limited resources, tensions, and religiously sanctioned child abuse. They remember Homa’s early yearnings for justice; the battle for democracy during the Shah’s regime; and her marriage, which began as a loving partnership and ended under Khomeini in disaster. They recount the stonings, beatings, rapes, and executions of women, all performed in the name of God – outrageous abuses that Dr. Homa Darabi tried to expose to the world through her final act of desperation.
Shackled: One Woman’s Dramatic Triumph Over Persecution, Gender Abuse, and a Death Sentence
by Mariam Ibrahim
Shackled is the stunning true story of a courageous young Sudanese mother who was willing to face death rather than deny her faith. Mariam Ibraheem took a stand on behalf of all women who are maltreated because of their gender and all people who suffer from religious persecution.
Singing Through the Night: Courageous Stories of Faith from Women in the Persecuted Church
By Anneke Companjen
The author sheds light on the lives of eleven women suffering persecution in nine different countries around the world. Through their true stories of imprisonment, full of loss, pain, and unexpected joy, these women inspire readers to persevere and endure hardships for the cause of Christ. At the end of each chapter are questions for deeper study. Readers will be moved by the strength and faith of these courageous women.
Song of the Nightingale: One Woman’s True Story of Faith and Persecution in Eritrea
By Helen Berhane
An inspirational and challenging true story of one woman’s faith, so strong it could not be broken even in the face of imprisonment and torture. Helen Berhane was held captive for over two years in appalling conditions in her native Eritrea. Her crime? Sharing her faith in Jesus, and refusing, even though horrendously tortured, to deny him. A sobering, painful, heart-rending account of true faith in the face of evil, this book makes for uncomfortable and yet inspirational reading.
Tears of Gold Portraits of Yazidi, Rohingya, and Nigerian Women
by Hannah Rose Thomas
In these portraits of women from three continents and three religions, we see not only war and injustice, but also humanity and resilience. Many of the women have suffered sexual violence; all have been persecuted and forcibly displaced on account of their faith or ethnicity.
The Last Girl, My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State
by Nadia Murad
Nadia, a member of the Yazidi minority in Iraq, was abducted, raped, and enslaved by members of the Islamic State in 2014, when she was twenty-one years old. Her extraordinary memoir is a testament of her strength in the face of unimaginable adversity. Nadia was one of two recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.
Under Threat of Death: A Mother’s Faith in the Face of Injustice, Imprisonment, and Persecution
by Shagufta Kausar and Eugene Bach
Raised as a Christian minority in a Muslim nation, Shagufta Kausar learned early on to never argue about faith or to stand up for her beliefs. Doing so could easily lead to riots and deadly violence, so she was told to always be silent, like a lamb. Her stunning true story of a courageous mother of four standing against the tyranny of her country’s blasphemy laws illuminates the reality of what many Christians around the world face every day. Shagufta is a voice for Christian minorities that suffer daily persecution under unjust laws.
Unseen Courage: Through Rohingya Women’s Eyes
by Rohingyatographer, a unique photography project created by a collective of talented Rohingya photographers based in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
This rare alchemy of vision and voice was created by Rohingya women who turn their lenses on life in Cox’s Bazar—the world’s most populous refugee camp. These aren’t just snapshots; they’re acts of courage and defiance, fragments of a larger narrative seldom told. Ishrat Bibi curates this visual symphony, while Rohingyatographer—a refugee-led initiative—serves as the platform. This book urges us to look beyond the headlines to witness the multifaceted existences of these remarkable women and their community.
Uyghur Women Activists in the Diaspora: Restorying a Genocide
By Susan Palmer and Colleagues
The best way to document the horror of what is happening is to let victims speak for themselves. Researchers Susan J. Palmer, Dilmurat Mahmut, and Abdulmuqtedir Udun focused on the personal stories of women who grew up in China in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, experiencing systematic racism, religious persecution, and a glass ceiling that even after graduating from top inner China universities left them excluded from the competitive employment market, overlooked in favor of Han Chinese graduates.
What They Meant for Evil: How a Lost Girl of Sudan Found Healing, Peace, and Purpose in the Midst of Suffering
by Rebecca Deng
What They Meant for Evil is the account of an unimaginable journey. With the candor and purity of a child, Rebecca recalls how she endured fleeing from gunfire, suffering through hunger and strength-sapping illnesses, dodging life-threatening predators-lions, snakes, crocodiles, and soldiers alike-that dogged her footsteps, and grappling with a war that stole her childhood.
With Ash on Their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State
By Cathy Otten
Yezidi women describe how, in the most recent conflict, they followed the tradition of their ancestors who, a century ago during persecution at the fall of the Ottoman empire, put ash on their faces to make themselves unattractive and try to avoid being raped.
Women of the Catacombs: Memoirs of the Underground Orthodox Church in Stalin’s Russia
By Wallace L. Daniel (Translator, Introduction), Archpriest Aleksandr Men (Preface) and Roy R. Robson (Foreword)
These memoirs offer a rare close-up account of the underground Orthodox community and its priests during some of the most difficult years in Russian history. The catacomb church in the Soviet Union came into existence in the 1920s and played a significant part in Russian national life for nearly fifty years. Adherents to the Orthodox faith often referred to the catacomb church as the “light shining in the dark.” Women of the Catacombs provides a first-hand portrait of lived religion in its social, familial, and cultural setting during this tragic period.
