BEST NON-FICTION BOOK of 2006 —Kam Williams, PRINCETON

"...the African Garbo" —NY TIMES

"Kola Boof is one of our greatest migrant writers" —HUFFINGTON POST

Kola Boof's controversial 2003 autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl" (first published in the UK) is nothing less than magnificent. Many will be spellbound by more than 90 pages detailing her terrifying experience as Osama Bin Laden's former mistress, but the Sudanese-born Novelist/Poet writes even more profoundly about the hardships of being vaginally circumcised, about witnessing her birth parents killed in her presence as a small child, about slavery and Arabism in Sudan, about being adopted and raised in the U.S. by African Americans, about her quest for true love, and in one particularly daring chapter, about her hopes for the future of her sons. Add to that years of psychiatric treatment, a struggle with manic anger and quite a few daring romances other than Bin Laden and you've got the perfect ingredients for a feature film.

Critically acclaimed for her powerful novels "Flesh and the Devil", "The Sexy Part of the Bible" and the classic short story collection, "Long Train to the Redeeming Sin"...I'm now convinced that there's no way Kola Boof could ever create a fictional character in one of her novels that is more glamorous, sad, enigmatic and intriguing than she herself is in real life.

Throughout the book, Kola speaks in a voice so utterly naked, truthful and unpretentious that it's impossible not to fall in love with her.

"Diary of a Lost Girl" is a powerful autobiography that you won't soon forget.
—Kurt Rampling (editor)