"My grandparents used to tell me Rwanda is a country unlike any other, and I knew they spoke the truth. Blessed with majestic mountains and breathtaking valleys, it is a sacred and spiritual land. And yet Rwandan men drenched the land in blood in acts of hate so horrific that the stains of those three years will not fade in one hundred lifetimes."

At the age of eight, Alpha Nkuranga made a fateful decision. With war raging around her, she grabbed the hand of her younger brother, Elijah, and ran from her grandparents' home. When they came to a swamp, they hid until it was safe to escape. Weeks later, they joined a group of refugees, who were fleeing to Tanzania. "If I kept walking," Alpha remembers thinking, "I could tell my story."

Nkuranga emigrated to Canada more than a decade later. She now works with women and children who face abuse and homelessness. In Born to Walk, she tells a remarkable story of resistance and survival. (From Goose Lane Editions)

Alpha Nkuranga works for Women's Crisis Services in Kitchener, Ont. She fled Rwanda as an eight-year-old and lived in refugee camps in Tanzania and Uganda before arriving in Canada in 2010.