She's not someone I would ever want to meet or hang out with, although I do respect what she's been through and genuinely admire her triumph over adversity and her activism.

Waris Dirie's memoir is an extraordinary journey : from desert nomad,to domestic servant,to supermodel,to UN ambassador for the elimination of FGM.More recently she's become an international UN ambassador on the issue of FGM after sharing her personal story with the magazine Marie Claire and on 20/20.

Cathy’s biography of Nafis Sadik, Champion of Choice, is the result of ten years of work and many, many strange circumstances. But also a nightmare, because Waris Dirie became a victim of a cruel ritual when she was five years old: she got circumcised. Iki dvylikos metų augusi dykumoje, kuomet lietus buvo didžiausia šventė, o moterų apipjaustymas ir mirtys – kasdienybė, Varis nežinojo, kad egzistuoja ir kitoks pasaulis. I found this book in “full flight”; the author is on the move constantly, making the book suffer from a lack of contemplation.In the fascinating resumption of her autobiography “Desert Flower”, Waris Dirie conveys a compelling and touching picture of life in Somalia: on the one hand, a great variety of traditions but on the other hand, the archaic distribution of roles, which particularly puts the country´s women in chains.