Unbowed: A Memoir

Summary

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

A remarkable memoir of courage, faith, and the power of persistence about one woman’s extraordinary journey from her childhood in rural Kenya to the world stage.

In Unbowed, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai recounts her extraordinary life. When Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, she began a vital poor people’s environmental movement, focused on the empowerment of women, that soon spread across Africa. Persevering through run-ins with the Kenyan government and personal losses, and jailed and beaten on numerous occasions, Maathai continued to fight tirelessly to save Kenya’s forests and to restore democracy to her beloved country.

“[Maathai’s] story provides uplifting proof of the power of perseverance—and of the power of principled, passionate people to change their countries and inspire the world.”—The Washington Post