The Boy Who Wouldn’t Die
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley November 26, 2014
Author David Nyuol Vincent with Carol Nader
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ISBN: 978-1-74331-025-0
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
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Website: http://www.allenandunwin.com
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This is a story of human survival and one that will make your heart weep for all the people, worldwide, whose lives have been torn apart by war, famine and the complete collapse of their societies.
It is also one of hope, triumph and survival. One that shows the human spirit can be hard to quench and that with sheer determination, faith and the desire to survive new can come from old and rebirth can be born out of destruction.
Vincent is a stand tall symbol for all those who are struggling to come to terms with severe trauma, showing that great and good things can be born out of tragedy.
As a small child he was taken from his family by his father in order to escape the devastation that was Sudan. His parents considered as he was the oldest and a male that he had the best chance of survival on the journey that was to be undertaken.
Little did he and his father know the journey was to be even more perilous that either had imagined.
Walking for many, many months crossing the Sahara desert on foot with little water, staring at death daily as they passed others who had not managed to complete the journey, was just the beginning in his struggle to survive.
Eventually reaching a refugee camp of sorts in Ethiopia Vincent and his father became separated and it was only Vincent’s love and skills at soccer that helped him survive the many years of deprivation that were to follow.
Ethiopia eventually reached tolerance levels with the still massive influx refugees and started to move them on to other places- namely the Army of sorts. Vincent was one of the children selected to train as a child soldier and so a different life began.
In 2004 he was eventually offered a Humanitarian visa and came to live in Australia, where a vastly different struggle for survival began.
Six years on he had met the woman he was to marry, has become a father, and is considered a strong voice in the advocacy for human rights and the Sudanese communities within Australia.
He eventually graduated from the Melbourne University as a graduate in Political Science, has returned to the Sudan on a number of occasions in his role as a human rights ambassador and has reunited with his mother and other members of his family still living in the Sudan.