'WORLD CITIZEN'

JOURNEYS OF A HUMANITARIAN

by Jane Olson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 2022

Olson recalls her international social justice work in this inspirational debut memoir.

Born nine months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Olson grew up in a rural community in western Iowa. As a child, she was handed a prize pistol by her father only to accidentally drop it in the river. From that moment on, she “forever hated guns.” At 15, she gained experience penning articles and obituaries for her hometown newspaper, which compelled her to write with compassion, “hoping to ease the pain of those who grieved their loss.” Olson graduated from the University of Nebraska, where she majored in history and journalism, before taking on an editorial role with the Ypsilanti Press in Ann Arbor. Her husband, Ron, a law school graduate, worked in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, and as a young wife and mother, Olson volunteered at Los Angeles organizations serving underprivileged children. The author notes that injustice always made her angry. Her first of numerous overseas forays was to Nicaragua during the Contras wars as part of a delegation to assess the threat of spreading communism. Working with humanitarian organizations, she later visited Eastern Europe during the fall of the Soviet Union and worked extensively throughout Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East addressing issues such as refugee conditions in the Caucasus and the HIV/AIDS crisis in Malawi. Olson also catalogs her roles in key organizations, such as chairing the International Board of Human Rights Watch and the Landmine Survivors Network.

Olson’s descriptive prose transports the reader to the many locations she traveled. For example, here she talks about Yugoslavia: “A light snow started falling, dropping big flakes that melted instantly on the windshield of our car, a wet snow that reminded me of early winters where I grew up in Iowa.” She goes on to tie trauma to the scene before her: “Snow always made the landscape look so clean. That thought struck me as ironic, since this war in the former Yugoslavia was called the ‘ethnic cleansing of Bosnia,’ and slaughter was anything but clean.” Olson also documents the atrocities that result from conflict. The author shares the story of Happy, a Rwandan genocide survivor and speaker at a conference focusing on war crimes against women, who describes the grisly discovery of a “seven-month-old baby drinking blood from his mother’s wounds” following a militia attack on a Catholic mission. In addition to writing about human pain, the author writes movingly about the power of human connection, describing a “deeply human kinship” she shared with Alma, a mother and former prostitute in Nicaragua who was “trying so hard to improve her life.” Driven to help others and bring about positive change, Olson recounts an extraordinary journey that describes the reality of conflict and injustices across the globe and across decades. This well-considered, affecting book may move others to follow a similar path.

A stirring account of humanitarianism.

Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5136-9569-3

Page Count: 429

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR