Descended from West African kings and healers, raised in theturbulence of Guinea in the 1960s, Kadiatou Diallo was married offat the age of thirteen and bore her first child when she wassixteen. Twenty-three years later, that child–a gentle, innocentyoung man named Amadou Diallo–was gunned down without cause on thestreets of New York City. Now Kadi Diallo tells the astonishing,inspiring story of her life, her loss, and the defiant strength shehas always found within.
The author of classic novels including Indiana and Lélia , George Sand is perhaps better known for herunconventional life. Belinda Jack unravels the many facets of thiswriter who counted among her friends and lovers everyone fromChopin and Liszt to Dostoyevsky and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.Sand defied convention by writing novels; but the fact that she wasa cigar-smoking cross-dresser who took male and female lovers,declared marriage “barbarous,” and championed socialism made her alegend. Allowing Sand’s voice to be heard, but wise enough toquestion it, Jack presents a riveting study of a woman raised byher aristocratic grandmother and her prostitute mother, and whoselife and work were forever fueled by rival worlds.
