Author and West African activist Leymah Gbowee, Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Yemeni activist Tawukul Karman all shared the Nobel Peace Prize today.
If you want to learn more about Gbowee, Beast Books recently published her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers. HarperCollins published Sirleaf’s memoir, This Child Will Be Great.
Here’s more about Gbowee’s memoir: “In 1999 she was introduced to a fledgling network of women working to bring peace and social justice to West Africa. She quickly discovered a focus for her talents—and a way to fight against the war that threatened to destroy her. In a dream, almost a religious vision, she heard a voice telling her quite clearly to ‘gather the women to pray for peace.’ The result was the creation of the country’s first Christian-Muslim alliance, which eventually grew into the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, a nonviolent women’s protest movement that helped end the dictatorship of Charles Taylor and the war. Gbowee has become famous for her role in persuading thousands of ordinary women to dress all in white and demonstrate day after day, month after month, for an end to the fighting.”