Supermodel With A Voice: Alek Wek

Alek Wek has written an autobiography: Alek, From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel. Here's what her publishers have to say about the book:

Since the day she was scouted by a modeling agent while shopping at a London street fair when she was just nineteen, Alek Wek's life has been nothing short of a fantasy. When she's not the featured model in print campaigns for hip companies, or gracing the cover of Elle, she is working the runways of Paris, New York, and Milan to model for the world's leading designers, including Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. But nothing in her early years prepared her for the life of a model.

Born in Wau, in the southern Sudan, Alek knew only a few years of peace with her family before they were caught up in a ruthless civil war that pitted outlaw militias, the Muslim-dominated government, and southern rebels against each other in a brutal conflict that killed nearly two million people. Here is her daring story of fleeing the war on foot and her escape to London, where her rise from young model to supermodel was all the more notable because of Alek's non-European looks.

A probe into the Sudanese conflict and an inside look into the life of a most unique supermodel, Alek is a book that will inspire as well as inform.

Sounds like this will be a good read; the book will be out on August 28th. Somalian model turned FMG activist Waris Dirie has also released a new book, Letter To My Mother. The book has only been released in a limited number of languages and a limited number of countries throughout Europe ... MIMI's hoping that an English translation will soon hit the bookshelvs.

MIMI Features Link: The Truth About FGM www.mimimagazine.com/october2005/01-07-fgm01.html