A review by thebookishfeminist
Walk Toward the Rising Sun: From Child Soldier to Ambassador of Peace by Ger Duany, Garen Thomas

5.0

Walk Toward the Rising Sun is a breathtaking, raw, beautifully written memoir about a Sudanese boy whose life, and entire childhood, are completely upended when the civil war breaks out. He experiences losses and extraordinary trauma as he witnesses war ravaging his communities, people turning on each other, dear family members and friends getting killed or turning their allegiances to the oppressors. But all through that, Duany remains determined to make a better life for himself, and keeps the words of a lost family member in his mind constantly as his inspiration to keep going. Eventually, he makes it to the United States and we see how he makes a new life for himself, while remaining deeply and inextricably connected to his family and his homeland.

There is enough nuance and to poetic prose to keep older readers challenged and engaged, but Duany also has a way of organizing the chapters and even the paragraphs and phrases that makes it easy to follow, do some deeper analysis, and connect with both the details and the broader themes of the memoir.

I think Ger Duany did an absolutely remarkable job with this memoir. He makes the story of an inconceivably difficult and traumatic series of events accessible to younger readers who need to learn about these histories. I hope libraries and schools truly all over the world will make this powerful story accessible to children. It will stick with me for a long time and provided me with a framework to learn more about this history.