It wasn’t your fault; it was never your fault. You did nothing wrong. Hold this tight to your heart: it wasn’t your fault.
At night when you lay there and your mind fills with images and you wonder if only, if you had . . . if you hadn’t . . . . Remember: it wasn’t your fault.
Dear Sister shares the lessons, memories, and vision of over fifty artists, activists, mothers, writers, and students who share their stories of survival or what it means to be an advocate and ally to survivors. Written in an epistolary format, this multi-generational, multi-ethnic collection of letters and essays is a moving journey into the hearts and minds of the survivors of rape, incest, and other forms of sexual violence, written directly to and for other survivors.
Dear Sister goes far beyond traditional books about healing that use “experts” to explain the experience of survivors to the rest of the world. Here, we learn what the world looks like through the eyes of a survivor. From a professor in the Midwest to a poet in Belgium, an escapee from a child prostitution ring, an advocate in the Congo, and a sex worker in San Francisco, Dear Sister touches on issues of feminism, love, disability, gender, justice, identity, and spirituality.
Portland State University
PSU Multicultural Center
SMSU 228
Portland, OR
