Pride of a Lioness

An Eritrean refugee hides her identity as the notorious human trafficker, "Madame Luna". When she is forced to stay in Italy on her way to freedom, she experiences the same hardships endured by the people she exploited. Can anyone escape their past? Almaz has learned the hard way how to survive in a harsh contemporary world: from her time in servitude in the Eritrean army, she has made her way, as seemingly just one refugee among hundreds, to a center in Calabria, Italy. But, in between, she was Madame Luna, a powerful, illegal operator who held the lives of many people in her hands. As she moves from isolation and solipsism to a new position of benevolent influence in a multicultural community, she discovers how difficult it is to erase the tragedy that haunts her nightmares - and how easy it is to slip into insidious, seductive networks of local criminality. Can Almaz manage to save others, yet alone herself? —Jakkepoes