The whole title is Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Prison. This a true story told by the eldest daughter of the Oufkir family. Malika grew up around royalty. Her father was a general and highly favored advisor to the King of Morroco. Malika was adopted by the king at the age of five and lived in the palace until she was fifteen as a playmate for the king's daughter. Meanwhile she had five other syblings at home. A new king was in place once she went home and two years later her father led a coup te tat to remove the king, which failed and he was killed. The whole family was then put into prison. The youngest child being only three years old. They lived in the most rotten conditions for fifteen years eating little and soon seperation. The eldest boy in one cell, Malika and her sisters in another and their mother and the youngest son in another. There was a period of eight years where they didn't see those in the other cells for eight years. Then they had five years of confinement under house arrest before they were finally released.
This story was a little difficult to get through as it was very fact based writing and didn't really have a flow to it. It was hard to get any emotion out of it even though I was reading about horrible things. Also, there was no suspense buildup. Oufkir always gave anything that was about to happen. The story is amazing and the things that they had to go through was terrible. I had to keep reminding myself that they were getting older as I read because their maturation pretty much just stopped once they were in prison. Even though she almost forty by the time they were released, the way she talked sounded like a young girl telling the story. Their final release was just in 1993 so it's amazing that things like this still happen around the world. I'm glad I read it. It was very eye opening although not the most enjoyable read.
4 comments:
This book has been on my TBR list for ages. It's too bad that sometimes people who have amazing stories to tell aren't very good at the telling. I'm not sure I still want to read it now.
I've heard/read a few other things that have discouraged me from reading this book.
It sad about their lives and that things like that still go on today.
My father recommended this book to me. He summed it up pretty well: it's a great story, but not well written. It was horrific just to think of what that family went through.
I listened to the audio version of this book. Although I normally do not bother with abridged books, I think this one was very good. The reader was excellent and speaks with the native accent, which brings this book alive. Also, perhaps the editing that was done to abridge this book might have weeded out some of the portions of the book which were not well written. Fascinating story -- give the audio book a try. Signing as Anonymous because I don't have a Google screen name.
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