'' The extraordinary story of a young Sudaneses girl who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, and how, in September 2000 she finally escaped to freedom.Mende Nazer grew up in the remote Nuba mountains of Sudan. Her happy childhood was cruelly cut short when raiders on horseback swept into her village. The Mujahidin hacked down terrified villagers, raped the women and abducted the children. Twelve-year-old Mende was one of them.Sold to an Arab woman in Khartoum, Mende was stripped of her name and her freedom. She was kept as a domestic slave, an 'abid', without any pay or a single day off. Her food was the scraps left over from the family's plates, eaten with separate cutlery, and her bed was the floor of the garden shed, which was locked up each night. She endured this harsh and lonely existance without knowing whether her family was alive or dead, for seven long years. In the spring of 2000 Mende was passed on by her master, like a parcel, to a relative in London. Eventually she managed to make contact with other Nuba exlies who, with British journalist and filmmaker Damien Lewis, helped her escape to freedom. Slave is a shocking first-person insight into the modern day slave trade. It is also a fascinating memoir of an African childhood and a moving testimony to a young girl's indomitable spirit in the face of adversity and shattered dreams.'' - Back cover.