I received a copy of Toufah for free through Netgalley and the Publisher (Random House Canada) and am excited to share this review with you.
If you're not a member of Netgalley, you might not know how it works exactly. Basically if you meet their qualifications to become a reviewer, you apply to read books and then the publishers (sometimes authors) decide if they want you to be selected to read their book. Often it has to do with how many reviews you have written, what your job is (ie. librarian, bookstore owner etc) and whether or not you have a following (which would be you, reader!). I was warned when I got started by another member to not choose too many books at once because you get a bit of a backlog. I definitely did not heed that advice... hence why I downloaded Toufah several months ago but just finished reading yesterday. I had seen a post on facebook from McNally Robinson, a local bookstore where I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba and it reminded me that I had downloaded that book on my kindle months ago. I moved it up on the (never ending) To Read list and finished it in a little over a day.
Toufah is the Author's name as well as the title of the book, and it is important because for Toufah, her name was the opportunity to bring awareness to rape and sexual abuse in a country, The Gambia, which does not have a word for rape in the peoples' native languages nor had a single incidence of reported rape prior to Toufah coming forward. By putting her name and image out there for the world to see she opened the doors for conversation and created an opportunity for other victims and survivors to use her name as a shield or a tool to begin to come forward as well.
Toufah Jallow was a pageant winner in her late teens when she was groomed by the country's president in an attempt to force her into a polygamous marriage. When she refused he raped and sodomized her. Fearing for her life and the life of her family, Toufah quickly and without telling anyone, illegally crossed the border into Senegal and began her life as a refugee. Her eventual destination is Canada, a country where she knows no one but is finally relatively safe from any potential backlash at her decision to refuse the president.
Toufah is definitely a story of rape and a survivor. It is also a story about the challenges refugees face both when leaving their home and family and when arriving in a country that is large, terrifying and hard to understand, even when you speak English and French! It is also a story about political parties and dictators in African countries and the differences between cultures and societies across the world. Finally, it is about family and the lengths people go to to protect and support each other.
There were moments when I was critical of Toufah's decisions to include parts of her story where she did. For example, she spent quite a bit of time describing her brother who was autistic and died at a young age in the middle of the novel. I thought at first that it would make more sense earlier on in the story, but after completing the chapter and the story I began to see that the story of her brother gave the reader context for the world she lived in that played a more important role in a later part of the story. Sometimes chronology isn't the best choice for providing context, especially when a target audience (Canadians) may not understand the cultural and societal context of the country where the story took place. Even with these out of sequence stories, the story was easy to understand and follow.
While rape is obviously a large part of the background for this story, it is described without being excessively graphic. This may be a trigger warning for some, but adults who have not suffered this kind of trauma should be fine to read this book. It is detailed, interesting covers important topics in a comprehensive and personal way.
I really enjoyed this book and the opportunities it afforded me to understand a culture and country that I was not very familiar with. It also gave me a new understanding and perspective of the refugees and immigrants who enter my country, ready for a new start but also traumatized, lost and often completely alone. Anyone interested in these themes and topics should definitely pick up a copy of this book. Thanks again to Netgalley and the Publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book!