Malika Oufkir
Autore di Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: Photo by Larry D. Moore, 2006 (Wikimedia Commons)
Opere di Malika Oufkir
Opere correlate
Adrenaline 2001: The Year's Best Stories of Adventure and Survival (2001) — Collaboratore — 22 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1953-04-02
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- Morocco
- Luogo di nascita
- Marrakech, Morocco
- Luogo di residenza
- Morocco
Paris, France
Miami, Florida, USA - Attività lavorative
- autobiographer
- Breve biografia
- After her father, chief of Morocco's armed forces, was executed in 1972 for attempting to assassinate the king, Malika Oufkir and her mother and siblings were arrested and imprisoned for many years under harsh conditions. They were finally released in 1991. She emigrated to France, wrote a bestselling book about her experiences, and became an advocate for the rights of political prisoners.
Utenti
Recensioni
Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail… di Malika Oufkir
2.5
A young family's struggle to survive and maintain their dignity while being wrongfully held in a remote Moroccan desert jail for almost two decades. If you are looking for a real example of the power of human dignity when everything else has been stripped from you, look no further.
A fascinating and terrify account of a young girl's life in prisons. Her family was held as political prisoners
I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14429509
Malika Oufkir, her siblings and mother are imprisoned in Morocco for about 20 years for crimes committed by their father, who was executed. This is the story as Malika tells it, with the help of writer Michele Fitoussi.
The tale begins with Malika's childhood. Her father holds a high position in the government, is friends with the king. when the king wants to "adopt" Malika as a small child, her parents really can't say no. Apparently this kind of arrangement was not uncommon at the time: Malika remains the child of her parents but sees them only rarely. Nevertheless, she is connected to them, particularly to her mother.
Living in the various palaces through her childhood, Malika is guarded, unable to move freely. She is thus already in a prison of sorts.
When she is a young woman of 19 her father takes part in some kind of attempted coup. It fails and he is executed. The family is then restricted and soon taken to prison. They spend 20 years in various prisons, some of which allow access to relatives and provision of decent food, and unfortunately one of which is horrifyingly cruel. It is from this worst prison that the family manages to escape, through a tunnel meticulously planned and dug with tiny instruments.
I'm not giving anything away here; the dust jacket contains this information.
Clearly it's an amazing story, for a rich, pampered family to fall on such hard times and to find the strength to endure and escape. I only wish it were told better. I do not know where the problem originates - with the writer or with Malika - but the narration is flat and leaves us hanging time after time. I feel it would have been a better book if more of the details were finished - many stories just peter out - and if some of Malika's relatives were fleshed out more, as they seem to appear out of nowhere, with offhand references to how important they had been in the past. I would also have liked more detail on how the family dealt with things like the condition of their teeth after the years of neglect and lack of adequate nutrition, which are mentioned only briefly. I think such information would help us grasp better what it felt like to be in this situation, from beginning to end.
I felt that Malika tends to glorify her role here. She probably was important in the development of the escape plan and much else that helped the family hold together, yet she repeatedly tells us how great she was.
It's an important book for the story it tells. I only wish someone else had written it.… (altro)
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14429509
Malika Oufkir, her siblings and mother are imprisoned in Morocco for about 20 years for crimes committed by their father, who was executed. This is the story as Malika tells it, with the help of writer Michele Fitoussi.
The tale begins with Malika's childhood. Her father holds a high position in the government, is friends with the king. when the king wants to "adopt" Malika as a small child, her parents really can't say no. Apparently this kind of arrangement was not uncommon at the time: Malika remains the child of her parents but sees them only rarely. Nevertheless, she is connected to them, particularly to her mother.
Living in the various palaces through her childhood, Malika is guarded, unable to move freely. She is thus already in a prison of sorts.
When she is a young woman of 19 her father takes part in some kind of attempted coup. It fails and he is executed. The family is then restricted and soon taken to prison. They spend 20 years in various prisons, some of which allow access to relatives and provision of decent food, and unfortunately one of which is horrifyingly cruel. It is from this worst prison that the family manages to escape, through a tunnel meticulously planned and dug with tiny instruments.
I'm not giving anything away here; the dust jacket contains this information.
Clearly it's an amazing story, for a rich, pampered family to fall on such hard times and to find the strength to endure and escape. I only wish it were told better. I do not know where the problem originates - with the writer or with Malika - but the narration is flat and leaves us hanging time after time. I feel it would have been a better book if more of the details were finished - many stories just peter out - and if some of Malika's relatives were fleshed out more, as they seem to appear out of nowhere, with offhand references to how important they had been in the past. I would also have liked more detail on how the family dealt with things like the condition of their teeth after the years of neglect and lack of adequate nutrition, which are mentioned only briefly. I think such information would help us grasp better what it felt like to be in this situation, from beginning to end.
I felt that Malika tends to glorify her role here. She probably was important in the development of the escape plan and much else that helped the family hold together, yet she repeatedly tells us how great she was.
It's an important book for the story it tells. I only wish someone else had written it.… (altro)
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 3
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 2,165
- Popolarità
- #11,865
- Voto
- 3.7
- Recensioni
- 51
- ISBN
- 65
- Lingue
- 13
