ALEK

Before she walked a runway, the author walked for weeks to escape civil war.

The seventh of nine children born to a Dinka family, Wek was eight when war came to her hometown in southern Sudan. Overnight, childhood became terrifying. Some of the tricks she now uses on the runway she learned as a frightened child: Throwing her shoulders back and lengthening her body helped flatten her against the floor to escape the whizzing bullets of militiamen. Eventually, much of her family made its way to London. Wek spent her teenage years learning English, adjusting to British cuisine, going to school, babysitting for nephews and nieces. While wandering through a street fair in 1995, she was approached by an agent who asked if she’d ever considered modeling. Her mother worried that agents were just leeches, but Wek gave the fashion world a whirl anyway. Readers will be disarmed by the down-to-earth, intimate voice in which she narrates her stratospheric rise. Wek has used her platform to raise awareness about Sudan, meeting with members of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. She also reflects sagely on color and racism. “Whether I like it or not, my skin defines me,” she observes, admitting that her dark coloring has both helped and hurt her career. Initially, she had to fight against being typecast, offered only “work that called for ‘black’ features.” Now she ponders her possible complicity in the historical use of exploitative images of black people to sell everything from Robertson’s jam to Uncle Ben’s rice.

A celebrity autobiography with substance and political punch.