FREE: Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert

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Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail (Oprah's Book Club) (Hardcover) by Jail Malika Oufkir (Author), Michele Fitoussi (Author), Ros Schwartz (Author)
Now I have some idea of what it is like to go to hell and come back alive. Shattered, but alive. Malika Oufkir's autobiography, co-written with French journalist Michele Fitoussi, is extraordinarily candid for someone who has been in prison most of her life.
She and her family have experienced crushing, soul-suffocating oppression which has left severe, permanent damage on each member. While their lives have improved, to a certain extent they will all stay locked in time.

It is nothing short of a miracle, therefore, that someone who has been so repressed, can find the courage to reveal themselves with such frankness.

Stolen Lives is a truely unique story of the survival of the human spirit, a suspenseful fusion of fairytale, horror and thriller. It was one of those books I couldn't put down.

After I read the book several months ago, I interviewed Malika Oufkir for several stories I was writing about her. She wavers between fragility and toughness, she is both young and old, compassionate and passionate and displays great courage as well as great fear.

Malika has paid an unusually cruel and high price for her freedom of expression.

Before reading the book, it would benefit readers to do some background reading on events in Morocco which led to the incarceration of the Oufkir family. There are various sites on the Internet detailing the 1972 attempted coup d'etat by Malika's father, General Mohammed Oufkir. Also, reading on the structure of Moroccan society would be useful to understand what it was like to live under the iron-fisted rule of a feudal monarchy.