Beaten But Not Broken

There is no fear quite like the all consuming fear of the unknown. Couple that with subzero temperatures, being wounded, malnourished and one of 60 other men locked in a boxcar heading deeper into Nazi occupied Germany, deeper into the indignation of being a P.O.W., deeper into the horror and moment to moment reality of death.

At the height of her journalism career, more than one million households across the country knew her name and her face. Her reportage on human suffering and triumph captivated viewers, and with it Vanessa Govender shot to fame as one of the first female Indian television news reporters in South Africa. Always chasing the human angle of any news story, Govender made a name for herself by highlighting stories that included the grief of a mother clutching a packet filled with the fragments of the broken bones of her children after they'd been hacked to death by their own father, and another story where she celebrated the feisty spirit of a little girl who was dying of old age, while holding onto dreams that would never be realised. Yet Govender, a champion for society's downtrodden, was hiding a shocking story of her own. In Beaten But Not Broken, she finally opens up about her deepest secret - one that so nearly ended her career in broadcast journalism before it had barely kicked off. She was a rookie reporter at the SABC in 1999. He was a popular radio disc jockey, the darling of the SABC's Lotus FM, a radio station catering to nearly half a million Indian people across South Africa. They were the perfect pair, or so it seemed. And if anyone suspected the nature of the abusive relationship, Govender says, she doesn't believe they knew the full extent of the horror that the popular DJ was inflicting on this intrepid journalist. The bruising punches, the cracking slaps, and the relentless episodes filled with beatings, kicking and strangling were as ferocious as the emotional and verbal abuse he hurled at her. No one would know the brutal and graphic details of Govender's story ... until now. In Beaten But Not Broken, this Indian woman does the unthinkable, maybe even the unforgiveable, in breaking the ranks of a close-knit conservative community to speak out about her five-year-long hell in this abusive relationship. Her story also lays bare her heart-breaking experiences as a victim of childhood bullying and being ostracised by some in her community for being a dark-skinned Indian girl. Govender tells a graphic story of extreme abuse, living with the pain, and ultimately of how she was saved by her own relentless fighting spirit to find purpose and love. This is a story of possibilities and hope; it is a story of a true survivor.

For many years after that night, my memories of what happened after he held the blade to my throat and threatened my life were fragmented... difficult to piece together. It was too extreme, too violent for me to understand. Violently gang-raped when she was thirteen years old, and raped three more times before the age of eighteen, Madeleine has experienced more trauma in her life than most ever will. Living in a state of shock and self-loathing, it took her years of struggle to confront the buried memories of that first attack and begin to undo the damage. Yet, after growing up with a burden no teenager should ever have to shoulder, she found the heart to carry out the best revenge plan of all: leading a fulfilling and happy life. But the road to piecing her life back together was long and painful. For Madeleine, forgiveness was the key. True forgiveness takes genuine effort. It is the ultimate act of courage. In Unbroken, Madeleine tells her moving and empowering story, as she discovers that our lives are not defined by what knocks us down - they are defined by how we get back up.

What does love feel like?No one dreams or plans to fall in love with a rampant maniac. No one plans to marry the monster that haunts them day after day. Every abused person faces a mirror at some point and decides whether today is the day to leave. Domestic Violence is covered up by words, emotions, fabric, policies, family, lies, and distorted images of love. Love does not punch. Love does not hide. Love does not force itself. Love does not lie.In this narrative Michelle Davis Jones reveals numerous encounters with her abuser after the sacred