Valentina: The Exile Child: An autobiography by Rachel Valentina Nghiwete

On the dawn of Namibia's independence from South African rule in 1990, around 43,000 exiles were repatriated to the country formerly known as South West Africa. Of these, many had left their country of birth to flee the brutality of South Africa's apartheid regime, and/or to join the struggle (political and armed) for Namibia's liberation, waged primarily by the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). But included in the 43,000, were about 20,000 children who had never set foot in or fully experienced the country to which they were being repatriated, having been born to and/or raised by exiled soldiers and refugees of the struggle. In Namibia, these children are often referred to simply as 'exile kids', though the country's Government officially recognizes them as "The Children of the Liberation Struggle".

Rachel Valentina Nghiwete, is one such 'exile kid', born in the SWAPO camps of Kwanza-Sul, Angola, in 1979, to Namibian soldiers fighting under SWAPO's banner. Set against the background of Namibia's liberation struggle, Valentina: The Exile Child details the author's experience growing up in exile, her 'repatriation' to Namibia in 1989 on the eve of the country's independence, and her life outside the country in London and Washington DC, as the daughter of an Ambassador, as a businesswoman, and as an individual in pursuit of financial freedom.

The Exile Child also explores the challenges of establishing a Namibian identity after an early life in exile, and looks at how children of the liberation struggle - at home in Namibia and abroad - have struggled to adjust.

Read this book for a historical account of Namibia's road to freedom from the perspective of an exile kid, and for an inspiring tale of a Namibian exile child's painful and joyful journey to finding and living a life of meaning and purpose.