Born the seventh of nine siblings, on her escape to London at the age of fourteen she had already lived through violence, genocide and forced migration in her homeland. Alek Wek's memoir gives an insight into her rise to fame as a supermodel with a conscience, who balances cover shoots for glossy magazines (she was named Model of The Decade by i-D magazine) with political activism (working with Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. Committee for Refugees Advisory Council) and a dedication to refocus the world's attention on those she left behind in the Sudan. Col & b/w photos, 214pp, UK. VIRAGO.

Children's picture book. Eight year old Garang is tending cattle far from his home in southern Sudan when war comes to his village. Frightened but unharmed, he returns to find everything has been destroyed. Soon Garang meets up with other boys whose villages have also been attacked. Before long they become a moving band of thousands, walking hundreds of miles to safety. A story of courage and faith. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 42pp, USA. LEE & LOW BOOKS INC.

Charts his restless traverse of the African continent: "The [Angolan] security men could not understand why I had a Sudanese passport, lived in Kenya, obtained a visa in Zimbabwe and entered Angola from Namibia." 288pp, KENYA. PAULINES PUBLICATIONS.

New in paperback. Just 13 in 1987 when he was driven from his village and separated from his family in the raging civil war in southern Sudan, John Bul Dau spent years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, until in 2001 he came to the U.S. as one of 4,000 Lost Boys of Sudan. His memoir is the subject of a new, award-winning documentary film. A stark, first-person account of trauma and survival. Dau tells it quietly, in fast, simple prose true to the young teen's viewpoint. He's funny about the culture shock in America and honest about his years in the camp, even the fact that, trauma notwithstanding, he liked being tabbed as a leader. Although appreciative of this country and the chance for work and college, he never denies his connections to the Sudan. 304pp, USA. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY.

Before the Lost Boys of the 1990s there were the refugee children from the Southern Sudan in the 1960s. Jacob Akol was one of them, and he writes of his experiences uprooted by war, separated from his family, wandering with his companions through Africa, until finally finding refuge in Ireland. 288pp, KENYA. PAULINES PUBLICATIONS AFRICA.

Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the governments of Northern and Southern Sudan, peace has officially been concluded. But does that necessarily mean that refugees want to return to their home country? How do they determine their decisions and what do they expect from the post-conflict era? Based on extended field research in the Rhino Camp Settlement in Northern Uganda and in the town of Yei in Southern Sudan this study addresses these questions. Bib, charts, 143pp, GERMANY. LIT VERLAG.

Aher Arop Bol is a boy of three or four when his uncle carries him from the bush into an Ethiopian refugee camp. It is the 1980s and they are fleeing the civil war in Sudan. This remarkable account tracks Bol's boyhood through one camp after another, through good times and bad, until he begins a vast journey through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe which finally ends in South Africa some ten years later. By the time Bol reaches Pretoria, he is in his early twenties, and for the first time finds himself without a purpose. Hoping to lift his spirits, he starts studying English at a school for refugees. He recounts his life experiences to a teacher, who suggests he writes it all down. The result is this book. 192pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

In 2000 the United States began accepting 3,800 refugees from one of Africa's longest civil wars. They were just some of the thousands of young men, known as Lost Boys, who had been orphaned or otherwise separated from their families in the chaos of a brutal conflict that has ravaged Sudan since 1983. This book focuses on four of these refugees, on their disorientation, their growing despondency over fruitless job searches, adjustments they faced upon finally entering the workforce, their experiences of post 9/11 xenophobia, and their undying dreams of acquiring an education. Index, 261pp, USA. UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS.

New smaller format edition. Mende Nazer grew up in the remote Nuba mountains of Sudan. When raiders swept into her village she was taken into slavery and sold to an Arab woman in Khartoum. After seven years in captivity, in 2000 she was taken to London to serve a relative of her master. Eventually she escaped to freedom after making contact with other Nuba exiles. With journalist Damien Lewis, she recounts her life in captivity and describes the modern slave trade. 325pp, UK. VIRAGO.

Examines the social, cultural, economic, and political transformations that have occurred among southern Sudanese women refugees as they experience life in Cairo, Egypt. It shows how these women use their newly acquired skills and knowledge to challenge their past and to challenge the image of women refugees as victims and dependents. Counters prevailing tendencies to categorize these women as victimized, dependent and backwards, and recognizes their strengths and contribution to their new societies. 288pp, UK. PALGRAVE.

Benjamin, Alepho, and Benson were raised among the Dinka of Suda in an insulated, close-knit community of grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. The lions and pythons that prowled beyond the village fences were the greatest threat they knew. All that changed the night the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking their villages. Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, five-year-old Benson and seven-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. Two years later, Alepho, age seven, was forced to do the same. Across the Southern Sudan, over the next five years, thousands of other boys did likewise, joining this stream of child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. Their journey would take them over one thousand miles across a war-ravaged country, through landmine-sown paths, crocodile-infested waters, and grotesque extremes of hunger, thirst, and disease. The refugee camps they eventually filtered through offered little respite from the brutality they were fleeing. 332pp, UK. PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

Emmanuel Jal was only seven years old when he was taken from his family home to become a child soldier with the rebel army in Sudan's bloody civil war for nearly five years. Beaten, starved and brutalised Emmanuel was put into battle in Ethiopia and southern Sudan carrying an AK-47 taller than himself. He attempted to leave the SPLA but was hunted down and thrown into a desert prison. He finally escaped and is now an internationally-acclaimed rap artist spreading messages of peace and reconciliation with his unique style of gospel rap. 288pp, UK. LITTLE BROWN.

New in paperback. A novel which presents the history of the Sudanese civil war through the eyes of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee living in the US. Driven from his home as a boy, Deng's travels bring him in contact with government soldiers, ganjaweed-like militias, liberation rebels, hyenas and lions, aid workers, disease and starvation. 535pp, UK. PENGUIN BOOKS.