The inspirational memoir from Paralympian and disability advocate Anne Wafula Strike

Struck down with polio at the age of two and a half, Anne overcame the prejudice rife in her native village in Kenya, where neighbours believed she was cursed and called her a snake because of her disability, which left her paralysed below the waist.

Losing her mother at a tender age, and sent to a school far away from home, she achieved fantastic academic results, amidst the challenges of a military coup. She went to university and qualified as a teacher, and fell in love with a British man who truly valued her defiant spirit.

She moved from a world with no running water to make a life for herself in modern Britain. Where, against all odds, she bore a child, and went on to being the first East African to compete in her sport internationally. Anne is currently in further training, hoping to represent Great Britain at the 2012 Paralympics.

Anne Wafula Strike was born in a small village in western Kenya. Aged two and a half she contracted polio, leaving her effectively paralysed. After taking up wheelchair racing, she represented Kenya in the 2004 Paralympics, before joining Paralympics GB in 2006. She is Non-Executive Director of the British Paralympic Association, Active Essex and Princess Alexander Hospital Trust. She’s an avid, effective disability rights campaigner globally. Appointed an MBE in 2014 for services to disability sport and charity, she lives in the UK with her family.