Overview

What happens after you click tweet. . . The heart-stopping and definitive account of the rescue mission to free hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls, and their heroic survival, after their 2014 kidnapping spurred a global social media campaign that prompted the intervention of seven militaries, showing us the blinding possibilities—for good and ill—of activism in our interconnected world. In the spring of 2014, American celebrities and their Twitter followers unwittingly helped turn a group of teenagers into a central prize in the global War on Terror by retweeting #BringBackOurGirls, a call for the release of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who'd been kidnapped by the little-known Islamist sect Boko Haram. With just four words, their tweets launched an army of would-be liberators, spies, and glory hunters into an obscure conflict that few understood, in a remote part of Nigeria that had just barely begun to use the internet. When hostage talks and military intervention failed, the schoolgirls were forced to take survival into their own hands. As their days in captivity dragged into years, the young women learned to withstand hunger, disease, and torment, and became witnesses and victims of unspeakable brutality. Many of the girls were Christians who refused to take the path offered them—converting to Islam. While the world's most sophisticated surveillance technology sputtered out, a covert Swiss agency and its Nigerian recruits worked painstakingly in the shadows to free the girls. A powerful work of investigative journalism, Bring Back Our Girls unfolds across four continents, from the remote forests of northern Nigeria to the White House; from clandestine meetings in Khartoum safe houses to century-old luxury hotels on picturesque lakes in the Swiss Alps. It is a cautionary tale that plumbs the promise and peril of an era whose politics are fueled by the power of hashtag advocacy—revealing how wildfire social media activism is reshaping our relationship to global politics.

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9780062933928

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This intimate and riveting account demonstrates the power of sustained international pressure in the name of human rights. Most importantly, it serves as a testament to the strength of the Chibok girls who resisted their captors and bravely asserted their humanity in the face of violent subjugation.--Nadia Murad, recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Everyone should read the testimonies of the Chibok girls who survived the capture. We need to help with efforts to liberate all of them and become more responsible for women and girls' protection in conflicts. --Malala Yousafzai

Everyone should read the testimonies of the Chibok girls who survived the capture. We need to help with efforts to liberate all of them and become more responsible for women and girls' protection in conflicts. --Malala Yousafzai

This intimate and riveting account demonstrates the power of sustained international pressure in the name of human rights. Most importantly, it serves as a testament to the strength of the Chibok girls who resisted their captors and bravely asserted their humanity in the face of violent subjugation.--Nadia Murad, recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Everyone should read the testimonies of the Chibok girls who survived the capture. We need to help with efforts to liberate all of them and become more responsible for women and girls' protection in conflicts. --Malala Yousafzai This account of the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls and their courage and fortitude through the unspeakable brutality of their captivity is a nail-biter about survival told with Hitchcockian flair. Packed with their personal testimonies, along with fresh details of the hunt for them by a team of Swiss negotiators, Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw have written a work of brilliant journalism. --Lesley Stahl, correspondent, 60 Minutes Bring Back Our Girls is a journalistic masterclass: a detailed and compelling story of the unsung heroes who won the release of Nigeria's schoolgirls after the social media circus had moved on. --Tom Wright, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Billion Dollar Whale In light of the proliferation of hashtag activism by individuals and corporations following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, this exploration of the unintended impact of social media activism is both poignant and relevant.--Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw are Wall Street Journal Pulitzer Prize finalists and nominees who have covered Nigeria for more than a decade. Their work has been submitted for virtually every international reporting award. Two of the newspaper’s most seasoned foreign correspondents, they have reported from more than 60 countries. Their 2017 narrative on the Chibok kidnapping is one of the longest stories the newspaper has published in its 125-year history. It is cited internally as a model for digital era longform journalism. They are both experienced public speakers and regularly appear on national television and radio shows. Parkinson, a native of London, is the Journal’s Africa Bureau Chief, based in South Africa. Hinshaw, a native of Atlanta, is a senior correspondent based in Europe.

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