Stolen Lives Book Review

Review Written by Kristen Smith

Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail

By Malika Oufkir

So this is my first attempt at ever reviewing or reccomending a book to anyone. So, I am including the book review from Oprah's book club website. My mother-in-law read this book for her book and club and reccomended I read it as well.

The details of the book are included below so I will just share my brief thoughts. First off, this book opens your eyes to a world more foreign than I could wrap my mind around. The idea first that princesses and actual royalty that still exists. Second, the courage people have to stand up for what is right in countries where human rights don't carry a whole lot of weight. Third is the fight that exists in every human soul if allowed to persist and fourth the power of family.

You would think it was a fictional story by human rights activist trying to blow the whistle on how people are treated in some countries, if the women the story was about did not actually live today in Europe. Live being the key word. It opened my eyes to what is going on in the world that I have no idea about.

It is an incredible true story about one women's will to save her life and her families.

As far as ease of read goes, you won't want to put it down.. However, you can read it in spurts and it is suitable for most mature audiences. There are some things you would not want teenagers reading about. But you could read it first and help navigate them through those brutally honest and uncomfortable areas.

Announced May 16, 2001

An Introduction to Stolen Lives
The eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of Morocco's closest aide, Malika Oufkir was adopted by the king at age of five as a companion for his daughter. She spent most of her childhood and adolescence within the gilded walls of the palace, living an extraordinarily privileged yet secluded life.

Her world was shattered on August 16, 1972, when her father was executed for his part in an attempt to assassinate the King. Along with her mother and five siblings, Malika, then nineteen, was imprisoned in a penal colony. The Oufkir family spent the next fifteen years in prison, the last ten in solitary confinement, until they managed to dig a tunnel and escape. Their freedom ended five days later, however, when they were captured and returned to prison. In 1996, after twenty-four years of incarceration, the Oufkir family was finally granted permission to leave Morocco.

In Stolen Lives, Malika recounts her family's story with unflinching and heartrending honesty. She recalls their day-to-day struggle for survival in harsh conditions, being watched around the clock by prison guards, and communicating with her family solely through prison walls for more than a decade. She tells of raising her brothers and sisters, teaching them good manners and attempting to provide them with some semblance of a normal life. They celebrated Christmas and birthdays, saving up rations to make cakes and fashioning toys out of cardboard. Through it all, Malika managed to draw upon her sense of humor, which, she says, "allowed us to survive even-and most of all-at the worst moments."

In the Preface to Stolen Lives, co-author Michˆle Fitoussi recalls that, upon first meeting Malika, she asked herself, "How can anyone appear normal after such suffering? How can they live, laugh, love, how can they go on when they lost the best years of their life as a result of injustice?" The answers are found in this poignant and inspiring account of a family who endured with courage, determination, and dignity the cruel and unjust circumstances fate had in store for them.