Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of female genital mutilation, rape, and attempted rape.

The novel opens in Somalia. Waris Dirie, a 13-year-old girl, wakes up from a nap under a tree. A lion is standing over her, and Dirie is sure that she is about to die. Inexplicably, the lion does not attack her and leaves.

Dirie is trying to reach the city of Mogadishu. She has run away from her family, who are nomads traveling through the desert, because she does not want to marry the 60-year-old man to whom she is betrothed. Dirie’s father tracks her and follows her, but she manages to escape him.

She reaches a town and, having only ever seen the desert, is stunned by the streets crowded with cars and people. She hitches a ride in a truck driven by two men, and she sits in the truck’s bed among rocks. One of the two men comes into the truck bed and tries to rape her. Dirie manages to strike him on the head with a rock and escapes into the desert beside the highway. The other man yells after her angrily, claiming that she killed his friend.