Since the day she was scouted by a modeling agent while shopping at a London street fair when she was just nineteen, Alek Wek's life has been nothing short of a fantasy. When she's not the featured model in hip advertising campaigns, she is working the runways for the world's leading designers. But nothing in her early years prepared her for the life of a model. Born in the southern Sudan, Alek knew only a few years of peace with her family before they were caught up in a ruthless civil war that pitted outlaw militias, the Muslim-dominated government, and southern rebels against each other in a brutal conflict that killed nearly two million people. Here is her story of fleeing the war on foot and her escape to London, where her rise to supermodel was all the more notable because of Alek's non-European looks.--From publisher description.