"Mother of Orphans is the compelling true story of Alice, an Irish-American woman who defied rigid social structures to form a family with a black man in Ohio in 1899. Alice and her husband had three children together, but after his death in 1912, Alice mysteriously surrendered her children to an orphanage. One hundred years later, her great-grand daughter, Dedria Humphries Barker, went in search of the reasons behind this mysterious abandonment, hoping in the process to resolve aspects of her own conflicts with American racial segregation and conflict. This book is the fruit of Barker's quest. In it, she turns to memoir, biography, historical research, and photographs to unearth the fascinating history of a multiracial community in the Ohio River Valley during the early twentieth century.... Part personal journey, part cultural biography, Mother of Orphans examines a little-known piece of this country's past: interracial families that survived and prevailed despite Jim Crow laws, including those prohibiting mixed-race marriage."--Amazon.com, viewed April 17, 2020.

An inspiring story of one woman's survival and her part in God's work in Africa Annie Chikhwaza grew up in Holland. In struggling to come to terms with her abuse as a child, she tried to commit suicide but was dramatically converted through the ministry of Brother Andrew. She then began to minister, first to the poor and marginalized on the streets of Amsterdam and then in the volatile townships of South Africa during the height of the apartheid era. After surviving an abusive marriage and the turmoil and humiliation of divorce, she married a poor African pastor and went to Malawi to start an orphanage. Today Annie has nearly two hundred children in her care, many of whom are HIV positive, and she has built a small town called Kondanani ("Love one another"), which boasts a care facility, several children's homes, a nursery school, primary school, and farm. Kondanani is an oasis of love in a country with more than one million orphans. It has attracted the attention of the media around the world and a host of celebrities, including Madonna, who has adopted one of Kondanani's children. Annie's story, told here for the first time, shares her many terrible trials: abuse, abortion, a broken back, attempted murder, the loss of everything she had built, attempted rape, and the death of her beloved husband. Her story might have been one of bitterness and anger; instead, Annie uses each trial to point to God's love for her and for every one of His creation.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born in early twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition—and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one’s past.

An epic account of one remarkable woman's quest for justice from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country. In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock--the "Widow of the South"--has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. But when her ambitious, politically minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah--no stranger to loss--finds her world once more breaking apart. How could this happen? Who wanted him dead? Mariah's journey to uncover the truth leads her to unexpected people--including George Tole, a recent arrival to town, fleeing a difficult past of his own--and forces her to confront the truths of her own past. Brimming with the vivid prose and historical research that has won Robert Hicks recognition as a "master storyteller" (San Francisco Chronicle).

A novel of love and political upheaval, in which “Kathmandu is as specific and heartfelt as Joyce’s Dublin” (San Francisco Chronicle). In Buddha’s Orphans, Nepal’s political upheavals of the past century serve as a backdrop to the story of an orphan boy, Raja, and the girl he is fated to love, Nilu, a daughter of privilege. Their love scandalizes both of their families—and the novel takes readers across the globe and through several generations. This engrossing, unconventional love story explores the ways that events of the past, even those we are ignorant of, inevitably haunt the present. It is also a brilliant depiction of Nepali society from the Whiting Award–winning author of Arresting God in Kathmandu. “[Upadhyay is] a Buddhist Chekhov.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Upadhyay . . . [illuminates] the shadow corners of his characters’ psyches, as well as the complex social and political realities of life in Nepal, with equal grace.” —Elle “[Upadhyay’s] characters linger. They are captured with such concise, illuminating precision that one begins to feel that they just might be real.” —The Christian Science Monitor “Absorbing . . . Beautifully told.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Jails, hospitals, and strip joints; the celebrations of straight-A report cards, graduations, and Congressional honors - as the children demonstrate their humor, hope, and resilience in trying to overcome their society's failure.

Maria, Molly and Ming live on the streets of New York City in 1890 when Mother Cabrini finds them. With the love of Mother Cabrini the girls find their way to Christ.