To launch the “Sixteen Days against Violence against Women,” with gratitude to Khady

… And sincere thanks to Dr. U.H. Ruhina Jesmin, Professor at the University of Khulna, Bangladesh, for posting this image that I’m pleased to press forward.

If you teach courses in women’s and gender studies, particularly memoirs featuring survivors of female genital mutilation, I’ll be happy to supply, free of charge, a copy of Khady’s extraordinary book. Simply email me, Dr. Tobe Levin von Gleichen, to ensure I have your postal address: tlevin@fas.harvard.edu

ISBN: 978-3-9813863-0-1

“What we think of as the unspeakable pain and suffering of FGM must be shouted and given voice, relentlessly. Khady’s account of this all-too-common practice is wrenching and necessary reading.” Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University

A best-seller when it first appeared in France as Mutilée in 2005 and available in 18 languages, this is the first English edition of a ground-breaking memoir by Europe’s leading activist against female genital mutilation (FGM), forced and early marriage, and unequal gender relations in Diaspora.

“Blood Stains, a memoir of growing up in a traditional family in Senegal, presents a feisty protagonist whose illiterate mother insisted that she learn to read and write. At seven, Khady suffered genital mutilation – a concept used like tongs to handle fierce pain and brutality that would bring lifelong distress, sexual trauma and harrowing childbirths. The description is clear, direct and moving. Married off at thirteen to a man two decades older, the teenager was brought to France where she bore five children, and, as a battered wife, blew the whistle on an immigrant community that serves men’s interests. Not content to remain a victim, however, the young woman grows stronger, educates herself, earns money, fights to be free and finally devotes her life and energies to helping other women. Her courageous battle against FGM brings her to the U.N. to urge international support. Blood Stains is a weapon directed against those who claim that trying to eradicate this practice is paternalistic.”

Marge Piercy, poet novelist memoirist, author of Sleeping with Cats

Recommended for Women’s and Girls’ Studies, African Diaspora and Post-colonial Studies, Black and Afro-European Studies, Female Genital Mutilation Studies, Memoir, Anthropology, French Studies