An empowering memoir of resilience and redemption, and the rage that helped a girl escape the darkness of a harrowing childhood.
Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit. Coming of age with a myriad of fears and emotional disorders, Lisbeth had three things that would become driving forces in her life: she was extraordinarily bright, extremely willful, and exceptionally angry.
From hell to liberation, this is Lisbeth’s emotional and galvanizing memoir told in two voices: that of a young girl who was unwanted, challenged, and defiant, and that of a woman who channeled her rage into a positive force as a passionate advocate for children’s rights. Whatever darkness defines the past, it can be used to change the future. Lisbeth’s heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting journey is proof.
Lisbeth Zornig Andersen is a former children’s ombudsman in Denmark and the author of the bestselling memoir Anger Is My Middle Name, her first work to be translated into English. Already well known in Denmark for her advocacy and for My Childhood in Hell, a documentary detailing her early years, Lisbeth received global recognition in 2015 when she was charged and later sentenced for picking up a family of Syrian refugees in her car. This simple act of charity earned coverage in such publications as the Washington Post, Le Monde, the Guardian, and the Huffington Post and on air at the BBC and Al Jazeera, igniting an international debate about the ethics and legality of humanitarian aid. Lisbeth has also founded her own advisory consultancy and charitable foundation, where she continues her socially centered work.
Mark Mussari has his PhD in Scandinavian languages and literature from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has translated Danish novels, short stories, and nonfiction for publication, including Dan Turčll’s seminal crime novel, Murder in the Dark. A scholar of Danish literature, art, and design, Mussari is the author of numerous academic journal articles and the book Danish Modern: Between Art and Design. Mussari is also the author of numerous educational books, including books on Haruki Murakami, Amy Tan, Shakespeare’s Othello and sonnets, and popular culture. His recent translations for Amazon Crossing include Erik Valeur’s The Man in the Lighthouse and Carsten Jensen’s The First Stone.
