Female Genital Mutilation in the book 'Desert Flower' by Waris Dirie

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Literature - Africa, grade: 2,0, University of Würzburg, language: English, abstract: The paper deals with the topic of female genital mutilation in the book 'Desert Flower' by Waris Dirie. Waris Dirie became a bestselling author through her autobiographical novel in which she describes, inter alia, her childhood in Somalia and thus the genital mutilation she and her sister had to undergo. It is a lifestory which has contributed a significant part to the worldwide combating of FGM through the establishment of the Desert Flower Foundation. Simultaneously, Waris' success story is a political tool for the world's fight against genital mutilation and for human rights. The principal tool therefore is a natural non-dramatic perspective exposing her intimate experience, which is, in this case, her and her sister's genital mutilation in their childhood.