From Nobel Prize candidates to writers, artists, and singers, the young women in this remarkable book represent 58 countries from virtually every region on earth. The women write about their lives and their families, and how the world they inhabit differs from the world of their mothers. Photographs, songs, poems, paintings, collages, and prose express the challenges they face — child prostitution, AIDS, genital mutilation, hunger and poverty, oppressive religious and political regimes — as well as their cultural strengths: a Russian woman refuses to become a mail-order bride; Venezuelan painter Valentina Campos celebrates the close ties between grandmothers and granddaughters; poet Aya DeLeon fantasizes about a woman-run hip-hop industry; and Yoyin Sokefun of Nigeria explores the gulf between society's "ideal beauty" and women’s self-images. Enlightening, inspiring, challenging, and funny, Imagining Ourselves demonstrates the power of each individual life, and the collective power women share.