Bow Valley High School students are to get some understanding of what it would feel like to be attacked and tortured by rebel soldiers.

Author Mariatu Kamara is visiting Alberta as part of WordFest, the annual Calgary reading and writing festival, and she’ll talk to Bow Valley students about her experiences as part of the First Calgary Savings Book Rapport Program, the educational component of the festival.

Kamara was a young girl living in a small village in Sierra Leone when she was attacked by rebel soldiers, who raped her and cut off her hands.

Amazingly she survived, and during her escape tasted a piece of mango, her first bite of food since the attack.

That memory instilled in her the will to live, and later became the title of her book, The Bite of the Mango. Kamara now lives in Toronto and incredibly has not only pulled her life together, but spends her time representing children and women whose lives have been destroyed by war.

Kamara will speak to students at the school on Oct. 14.

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