Best Inspirational in the 2020 Independent Press Award
 
Danger wasn’t just the slum area in the Bronx with the pimps, hookers and hustlers. Danger lay within the tenement where I lived. Danger was my mother. This is the story of how Irene created a new life free of the fears that paralyzed her for far too long.
 
“Irene Sardanis writes with compulsion, ferocity, and immediacy of a wrongly imprisoned person, unexpectedly and surprisingly set free - which, of course, she is a prisoner of time, place, family, gender, religion and self.” —Mark Greenside


“Irene Sardanis's coming-of-age story is filled with drama, resilience, and hope. Her memoir told with grace, honesty and wit, will encourage and inspire others. At the close of a beautifully detailed description of a Greek feast, Sardanis writes, 'I have filled my empty.' Her story is an important aid to readers who want to better understand the complicated difficulties faced by immigrants.” —Pat Scheider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists and author of Writing Alone and With Others and How the Light Gets In