In the beginning of this remarkable tale, we meet thirty-year-old Mukhtaran Mai, her face wrapped in a colorful scarf and her eyes and voice frayed with pain and sorrow. She has just been gang raped on the orders of a tribal council governing her remote village of Meerwala in Pakistan. The rape was to avenge an alleged affair her brother had with a woman from another clan and following a custom of “honor for honor,” it was deemed that she should be punished to shame her family. Typically, a woman like Mukhtaran would be expected to commit suicide afterwards or disappear into social oblivion. But the extraordinary Mukhtaran chooses to pursue her attackers into the halls of justice, shaking an entire system to its core. She becomes a “cause célèbre” and wins large sums in reparation that she uses to change her destiny and the destiny of her village. What we witness is the blooming of a woman dressed only in the vestments of her dignity and her love for humanity, a woman ready to let everyone bathe in her blessings, including the children of those who raped her.  RD