Rebroadcast: Author Achut Deng's journey of survival from Sudan to America
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2023
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Before she was a teenager, Achut Deng escaped civil war in South Sudan and life in a Kenyan refugee camp. Until recently, she carried that secret history with her.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is on point. I'm Magna Chakra Bardee. |
| 0:07.0 | Achut deng was a child living through the Sudanese Civil War, fighting for her life as she |
| 0:17.1 | escaped Sudan to a Kenyan refugee camp. |
| 0:20.3 | She was a teenager when she arrived in the United States as a refugee. |
| 0:24.4 | And she was a mother, still carrying the secret weight of her history |
| 0:29.0 | when she decided to share her story with her sons. |
| 0:32.2 | Imagine that moment. Well the Chute writes |
| 0:36.3 | about her life in Sudan and America in her new memoir, Don't Look Back, a memoir of |
| 0:42.1 | War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America, which she |
| 0:46.0 | co-wrote with Keeley Hutton. |
| 0:48.4 | And Achute joins us from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. |
| 0:51.7 | Welcome to Onpoint. |
| 0:53.0 | Hello, thank you so much for having me. |
| 0:57.0 | First of all, how are you doing today? |
| 1:01.0 | I am doing great, a little cold outside, but I'm doing well. |
| 1:06.6 | Okay, good. |
| 1:09.7 | I wonder, if I could just start with this question, you know, before you decided to tell your |
| 1:17.2 | your sons about your whole story about your life before you came to the United States. |
| 1:23.4 | Did they know any of it at all? |
| 1:27.5 | All they knew was that mom grew up |
| 1:31.0 | in the refugee camp as an orphan and that was it. And everything else I hide from them. |
| 1:39.7 | Tell me why for those many years before you decided to tell your sons, why did you feel that |
... |
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