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An unlikely title, The Cat I Never Named is a YA memoir of a Muslim teen struggling to survive in the midst of the Bosnian genocide--and the stray cat who protected her family through it all. It is a stunning true story of Amra Sabic-El-Rayess who, even in the brutality of war, never wavered in her determination to obtain an education, maintain friendships, and even find a first love.

Amra is an amazing person. After surviving more than 1100 days under the Serbs’ military siege and ethnic cleansing in her hometown of Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, she emigrated to the US in 1996. Since then, she’s earned a BA in Economics from Brown University, two Masters degrees and a Doctorate from Columbia University and is now a professor at Columbia, working on understanding how and why societies fall apart and what role education can play in rebuilding decimated countries.