In My Dreams I Dance

The inspirational memoir from Paralympian and disability advocate Anne Wafula Strike, updated for 2024

Left partially paralysed below the rib cage by polio, Anne Wafula Strike was forced to flee her native Kenyan village, moving across the country with her family. After overcoming additional adversity, including the loss of her mother and ableist prejudice, Anne moved to the UK, where she discovered her talent for wheelchair racing.

The first East African to compete in her sport, representing Kenya in the 2004 Paralympics before joining Paralympics GB, Anne is now a fierce advocate for the promotion of the games around the world, and a champion of disabled rights.

First published in 2010, and fully updated with Anne’s passionate activism - including her campaign for more accessibility on public transport - In My Dreams I Dance is an incredibly inspiring story about why you should never let others slow you down.

ANNE WAFULA-STRIKE was born in a mud hut in a little village in western Kenya. At the age of two and a half she contracted polio. The virus left her paralysed below the waist and she spent the next twenty-eight years struggling to get around on callipers and crutches (wheelchairs are not widely available in Kenya). She graduated from university with a degree in education and then met her husband-to-be, Norman, a British man teaching in Kenya. They married and settled in the UK and now have a son together. In 2004 Anne represented Kenya in the Paralympics. In 2012 she will be representing Great Britain. She has recently been named as one of the Guardian’s one hundred hopefuls for 2012.