A 22-year-old woman has written a book about running away from her central Ohio home as a teenager after converting from Islam to Christianity — a case that gained national attention and pitted Christian fundamentalists against Muslims.
Rifqa Bary’s Hiding in the Light: Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus is scheduled for release on May 5.
Bary, a native of Sri Lanka, was 17 and living with her family near New Albany when she ran away to Florida in 2009. She claimed that her Muslim father had threatened her for converting, but authorities in Ohio and Florida found no evidence of that.
In a news release, publisher WaterBrook Press said Bary is now a college student living in an undisclosed location and still convinced her life is under threat.
“In the Islamic culture, women do not have a voice. My goal in writing is for my pen to be my voice,” Bary said in the release. A publicist said she was unavailable to comment.