Stronger Than Death: How Annalena Tonelli Defied Terror and Tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa

Jones explores the life of Italian aid worker Annalena Tonelli in this gripping biography. Jones was living in Somaliland in 2003 when Tonelli was assassinated just a few blocks from Jones’s apartment. Tonelli had moved to Wajir, Kenya, in 1969 to teach, and subsequently spent 33 years helping those with tuberculosis, and eventually, advocating against female genital mutilation and fighting against the AIDS stigma to help patients. Because many in the horn of Africa were skeptical of Western medicine, Tonelli spent much of her time simply trying to convince the ill to accept treatment and continue taking medicine. She also was convinced that living a comfortable life typical of the wealthy made one too complacent to offer meaningful care to those in need. “She believed claiming to love the poor while remaining rich would have been welfare, not love,” Jones writes. Tonelli gave up electricity and running water, refused to eat more than one small meal a day, and slept just four hours a night. While she was largely criticized by contemporaries—religious and nonreligious alike—for “caring too much,” Tonelli’s example of humility, asceticism, and loving with abandon will be a revelation to modern Christian readers and will appeal to anyone interested in international aid. (Oct.)