Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Don't Tell Me You're Afraid: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Don't Tell Me You're Afraid: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Don't Tell Me You're Afraid: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    Don't Tell Me You're Afraid: A Novel

    Written by Giuseppe Catozzella

    Narrated by Adjoa Andoh

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Based on a remarkable true story, an unforgettable Somali girl risks her life on the migrant journey to Europe to run in the Olympic Games

    At eight years of age, Samia lives to run. She shares her dream with her best friend and neighbor, Ali, who appoints himself her "professional coach." Eight-year-old Ali trains her, times her, and pushes her to achieve her goals. For both children, Samia's running is the bright spot in their tumultuous life in Somalia. She is talented, brave, and determined to represent her country in the Olympic Games, just like her hero, the great Somali runner Mo Farah.

    For the next several years, Samia and Ali train at night in a deserted stadium as war rages and political tensions continue to escalate. Despite the lack of resources, despite the war, and despite all of the restrictions imposed on Somali women, Samia becomes a world-class runner. As a teenager, she is selected to represent her country at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She finishes last in her heat at the Games, but the sight of the small, skinny woman in modest clothes running in the dust of athletes like Veronica Campbell-Brown brings the Olympic stadium to its feet.

    Samia sets her sights on the 2012 Games in London. Conditions in Somalia have worsened, and she must make the arduous migrant journey across Africa and the Mediterranean alone. Just like millions of refugees, Samia risks her life for the hope of a better future.

    Don't Tell Me You're Afraid is the unforgettable story of a courageous young woman, and it is also a remarkable window onto a global crisis.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 2, 2016
    ISBN9780735208636
    Unavailable
    Don't Tell Me You're Afraid: A Novel

    Related to Don't Tell Me You're Afraid

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Sameh El Dahan

      Dec 23, 2021

      Sameh El Dahan
      7 min read

    • Article

      Who Are The African Athletes Competing At The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics?

      Feb 14, 2022

      Though the majority of states on the African continent have little to no snow, creating a challenging environment for Winter Olympic traini, African athletes are rising to the challenge.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Emily Ward

      Apr 1, 2021

      Emily Ward
      6 min read

    • Article

      Chloe Kim

      Feb 12, 2018

      Rare is the 17-year-old with the perspective to see missing the Olympics as a good thing. Four years ago, Chloe Kim qualified for the U.S. team in Sochi—but she was still two years shy of 15, the minimum age to compete. “Looking back on it, I’m reall

      1 min read

    • Article

      2025 Fifa Club World Cup Will Be Better

      Feb 22, 2022

      The Intercontinental Cup between the European club champions and their South American counterparts, which was played between 1960 and 2004, created this notion that it was a match that decided‘who was the best football club in the world’. Notwithstan

      2 min read

    • Article

      Lifting The Veil

      Sep 1, 2021

      Lifting The Veil
      4 min read

    • Article

      Kicking Goals

      Jul 9, 2023

      Sam is the only female soccer player to score the Golden Boot (a leading goal scorer award) in three leagues and on three continents! When Sam isn’t playing as captain for the Matildas, she’s a striker for Chelsea FC in England! Sam Kerr didn’t start

      2 min read

    • Article

      Let The Chaos Begin

      Feb 8, 2024

      Let The Chaos Begin
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Game

      Dec 1, 2022

      The Beautiful Game
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘We Owe Much To Our Female Trailblazers’

      Apr 29, 2021

      polly.bryan@futurenet.com @pollyrose21 FIRSTLY I would like to add my heartfelt condolences to the royal family, and pay a small tribute of my own to Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. What a life he led and what a legacy he has left behind, in th

      2 min read

    • Article

      Moments Of Freedom

      Aug 14, 2022

      Moments Of Freedom
      4 min read

    • Article

      Senegal

      Jul 8, 2022

      The reigning African champions won their first-ever AFCON title in February with a penalty shootout win over Egypt – and then repeated the feat against the same side to win a place in Qatar. It’ll be their third appearance at the finals, where they m

      1 min read

    Reviews for Don't Tell Me You're Afraid

    3.5/5

    18 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      "He was going to do what Mo Farah had done... make the Journey"By sally tarbox on 6 August 2017Format: Kindle EditionQuite a powerful read, written in the first person from the point of view of Olympic Somali runner Samia Omar. The reader lives with her through a poor but happy childhood, her every moment taken up with running. But the endless war starts to permeate her contented life, whether it's ethnic conflict, casual violence or the increasing powers of Al-Shabaab - a load of muslim thugs intent on enforcing koranic ideas on the populace. Forced to curtail her athletic dreams, to run in a burqa, Samia decides to put herself in the hands of people traffickers and attempt to reach her sister in Finland and pursue sport unhindered...Brings home the plight of the illegal immigrants who make it to Italy (or sometimes don't) in dire conditions.Extremely readable, would be of interest to the YA reader (but I enjoyed it too!)
    • 4/5
      Her name is Samia. She wanted only to run, she had a dream, to represent her country of oppressed women in the Olympics. She starts running at the age of eight, with her good friend Ali, who will be her coach for many years. But, this is Somalia, a country perpetually at war, she runs in holey old gym shoes trying to bypass the glass, iron and other debris on the streets. Al-Shabaab is everywhere and they soon take power. Everything changes, no music, no singing, women must always wear the burka, never be seen without, no movies and life becomes unbearable. Still she runs, at night, dangerous, she has a dream and is not willing to let it go.Eventually she realizes her dreams will never come true in her country so she puts her faith in the traffickers, a journey that is hard and treacherous. Had to put this book down at certain places, pause and just reflect, take a little time out of mind. So powerful, so intense. I hope I never forget this remarkable woman's name, she is the embodiment of everyone who has their own dreams, tell themselves it is not possible, she is an inspiration. Based on a real person, this is her odds defying story, though it is heartbreaking. Puts things in perspective in my own country, why I think we need to read books like these no matter how hard. Even at their worst, in this country, we are so lucky. Books like these remind me of that and also how many people are struggling throughout the world. Always remember.ARC from publisher.
    • 4/5
      Samia Yusuf Omar knows she's an athlete from a young age.  Already at ten, she dreams of being the fastest and trains with a single-minded dedication on the streets of war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia despite the many dangers. In Mogadishu, a simple trip to the market can be a death sentence.  Not wearing the proper veils, stepping onto the city's beaches, or even being seen with her best friend and "coach," Ali, stand to put Samia in terrible danger. Samia finds refuge and support with her family in the relative safety of their home. Soon, Samia begins to win races, but as conditions in Mogadishu decline under the power of militant radical Islamist group, Al-Shabaab, the deadly risks of Samia and her sister Hodan's dreams strike too close to home. As tragedy strikes her family and the women of Mogadishu are forced to conform to the vigorous restrictions of Islamic law, Samia dreams not only of being the fastest but of making her family proud and being a beacon of hope for the subjugated women of her war-torn homeland.The world saw Samia's potential at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics where she represented her country in the 200m sprint.  While she may have lost the race, she won the support of an international audience.  Unfortunately, conditions are even more dangerous for her in the wake of her Olympic competition.  Being a picture of possibility for Muslim women makes her a target in her hometown. It's virtually impossible for her to train, and she cannot gain strength with the meager food her family can provide.  When her sister Hodan successfully makes the Journey, being smuggled across the Sahara and over the sea into Europe, Samia is heartbroken, but as conditions decline, Samia has to admit that the Journey is the only way she will ever realize her dream of being a champion.Don't Tell Me You're Afraid is a compelling novelization of the true story of Samia Yusuf Omar's childhood, rise to running excellence, and eventual desperate journey to escape the war and poverty afflicting Somalia.  Told in an extremely readable first person, the novel immerses readers in the life of a young girl who dreams of being the fastest and dreams of being a symbol of what her country had been and could be.  I was, at the start of the book, very ignorant of the conflict in Somalia.  While I had been aware of the growing amount of refugees, this novel puts a human face on the horrible conditions facing those whose desperation to escape would have them put their lives in the hands of deplorable smugglers who transport refugees in the worst possible circumstances and use every opportunity to extort every last resource from the desperate.  With Samia as the narrator, the ongoing tragedy of refugees is set in even more stark relief, knowing that this girl Somalia had paraded on an international stage was no better off than the least of these seeking asylum.  Don't Tell Me You're Afraid is a heartbreaking story that needs to be read.  While there are certainly some departures from the true to life sequence of events and a tendency of the author to wander into a sporadic second person narration that might bother the more discerning reader, Catozzella and translator Anne Milano Appel do a great job of bringing the heart of Samia's story to the page and making a hard to read account of  hardship and hope virtually unputdownable.