My Writing
Books
Memoir and narrative nonfiction exploring truth, justice, and the Gen X experience
Now You Know What It’s Like
My forthcoming memoir braids together my work under Yahya Jammeh’s brutal 22-year rule in The Gambia with my awakening to activism in today’s America — showing how the playbook of repression travels, and what it takes to resist. Readers will meet exiled journalists, torture survivors, and everyday heroes who taught me that protecting freedom anywhere means showing up even when you’re terrified. Especially then.
At its center is my own story: an investigation into enforced disappearances that ended in my arrest and surveillance, and a reckoning with what bearing witness costs. The habits I learned under dictatorship — adapting, continuing the work, refusing to freeze — became the lens through which I read the American political moment.
Published in 2016, this practical guide offered aspiring humanitarians a roadmap into the international aid sector. Drawing on decades of combined field experience across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Bernath and Reis provided insider knowledge on landing your first position, building essential skills, navigating organizational cultures, and sustaining a career in humanitarian work and development.
The aid landscape has shifted dramatically since publication—with funding cuts, geopolitical realignments, and the ongoing reforms—the book remains a resource for understanding the field’s foundations and the realities of working in humanitarian aid contexts.
Articles & Essays
Regular essays and reflections on Justice and Human Rights- focussing on personal reflections and stories around me.