The Silence Of The Volcano: Creating the Life we Deserve - Softcover

Konrad, Almudena

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798989306824

Publisher: Almudena Konrad, 2023

Synopsis

She arrived in California with one dollar in her pocket and no English. Twelve years later, she had a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and a tenured professorship. This is not a fairy tale. This is what it actually cost.

"A quiet and practical book, neither sentimental nor exaggerated. None have helped me in my own life as this book has." — Tristine Rainer, author of Your Life as Story (Penguin/Random House)

I grew up in Southern Spain, in the shadow of a father whose mind I could never predict. A mind that terrified me. At eighteen, I left home with a few dresses in plastic bags. At twenty-one, I left everything else: my ocean, my language, my flamenco, my people.

California was supposed to be the answer. Within months, I was an undocumented immigrant without fully understanding what that word meant. I cleaned houses for three dollars an hour. I took whatever work came. I had no English, no plan, and no one waiting for me.

What I had was anger. A quiet, burning anger that would not let me fail, and a stubborn belief that I deserved a life better than the one I was given.

This book is the honest account of what came next. Not the polished version. The real one: the loneliness, the humiliations, the courage, and the small, stubborn choices that added up to a life I built myself.

This book is for you if:
• You've survived something that was meant to break you
• You carry anger you were told to let go of, and it's the thing that keeps you moving
• You're an immigrant, a mother, a dreamer, or a woman starting over
• You've whispered to yourself: I deserve more than this

Inside these pages:
• Why anger, when you learn to channel it, becomes one of the most powerful forces for change
• The unspoken truth of the immigrant experience: loneliness, discrimination, reinvention
• How to build an identity you choose instead of the one you inherited
• A lived framework for creating the life you deserve: not affirmations, but action

If you have ever whispered I deserve more than this, start here.

About this title

About the Author

ALMUDENA KONRAD earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently teaches at Mills College @Northeastern University. Her journey is anchored in a profound commitment to education, primarily focusing on empowering the younger generation to pursue dreams beyond academia. She is married and a mother residing in Alamo, California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Almudena Konrad
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798989306824
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 316