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A review by katsbooks
Stronger Than Death: How Annalena Tonelli Defied Terror and Tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa by Rachel Pieh Jones
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
“The attitude toward missionaries and aid workers often was, as a priest who spent time in Mogadishu said, “God sent you here to work for us, get on with it.”
“Jesus told his disciples that the people around them would know who they were by their love.”
This biography was intensely interesting. I can't believe I'd never heard of Annalena before reading this. I felt like the writing was pretty good. The chapters were just short enough that it didn't feel like it was dragging on but not so short that the overall flow felt choppy. That being said, sometimes the storytelling felt a little confusing, at points.
Annalena was such an enigmatic figure. She spent 30+ years in the Horn of Africa but she wouldn't have called herself a humanitarian or aid worker. She worked hard to integrate herself into nomadic communities in order to successfully inoculate Somali nomads against tuberculosis. Her approach eventually led to the DOT (Directly Observed Therapy) for the treatment of TB. She managed to gain the trust of traditionally nomadic communities and spent so long with them that, by the end of her life, she referred to the community using first person plural pronouns (our, us, we). She was staunchly Catholic in her beliefs but never pushed those beliefs on the Muslim community and led every action with love, almost to a fault. I appreciated how Jones included "treatments" that Annalena would regret later in her life. She also addressed the idea of a "white savior" and ponders if Annalena fit into that box.
Overall, I really enjoyed this look at the life of someone who was complicated and lived a life I can't even imagine. I learned a lot even though I have some familiarity with Somali culture and history. If you like biographies or modern histories, this would probably be interesting to you.
“Jesus told his disciples that the people around them would know who they were by their love.”
This biography was intensely interesting. I can't believe I'd never heard of Annalena before reading this. I felt like the writing was pretty good. The chapters were just short enough that it didn't feel like it was dragging on but not so short that the overall flow felt choppy. That being said, sometimes the storytelling felt a little confusing, at points.
Annalena was such an enigmatic figure. She spent 30+ years in the Horn of Africa but she wouldn't have called herself a humanitarian or aid worker. She worked hard to integrate herself into nomadic communities in order to successfully inoculate Somali nomads against tuberculosis. Her approach eventually led to the DOT (Directly Observed Therapy) for the treatment of TB. She managed to gain the trust of traditionally nomadic communities and spent so long with them that, by the end of her life, she referred to the community using first person plural pronouns (our, us, we). She was staunchly Catholic in her beliefs but never pushed those beliefs on the Muslim community and led every action with love, almost to a fault. I appreciated how Jones included "treatments" that Annalena would regret later in her life. She also addressed the idea of a "white savior" and ponders if Annalena fit into that box.
Overall, I really enjoyed this look at the life of someone who was complicated and lived a life I can't even imagine. I learned a lot even though I have some familiarity with Somali culture and history. If you like biographies or modern histories, this would probably be interesting to you.