Mende Nazer was born into the Karko tribe in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, probably around 1981.

At about twelve years old, she was abducted during the civil war and enslaved as a domestic servant in Khartoum, where she endured years of mistreatment but held firmly to her faith. In 2000, with the help of a fellow Sudanese and journalist Damien Lewis, she managed to escape in London. In 2003, following public protest, she was granted asylum in the United Kingdom and later became a British citizen.

Today, she lives and works in New York and is married to a former refugee from the Karko tribe, whom she met during a U.S. book tour. In 2006, with the support of private donors, she returned to the Nuba Mountains and was reunited with her family for the first time since her abduction—an emotional journey she recounts in her second book Freedom (Befreit), co-authored by Damien Lewis. Her first book Slave became an international bestseller and inspired both a film and a stage play. “Faith, family, and hope carried me through,” she reflects.

Her story also inspired the founding of the Mende Nazer Foundation, which supports education and clean water projects in the Nuba Mountains.