n 1997, Abuk Jervas Makuac and Susan met by chance one evening at a refugee resettlement center in Dallas. There, they decided to join forces to write Abuk’s life story, the life story of a woman who found herself and her young son suddenly swept up in the chaos and violence of the South Sudanese civil war. The book, published in 2022, has ultimately emerged as a compelling chronicle of both intimate and collective stories spanning from 1983, at the start of the war for independence, to the present day, as the often blood-soaked struggles toward nation-building continue.