Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail (Oprah's Book Club) | 
|  | | | Title: | Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail (Oprah's Book Club) | | Author: | Malika Oufkir
Michele Fitoussi
Ros Schwartz (Translator) | | Publisher: | Miramax | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 01 May, 2002 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0786886307 / 9780786886302 | | List Price: | $14.00 | | You Save: | $2.80 | | Amazon Price: | $11.20 | |
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Book Description
A gripping memoir that reads like a political thriller--the story of Malika Oufkir's turbulent and remarkable life. Born in 1953, Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of Morocco's closest aide. Adopted by the king at the age of five, Malika spent most of her childhood and adolescence in the seclusion of the court harem, one of the most eligible heiresses in the kingdom, surrounded by luxury and extraordinary privilege. Then, on August 16, 1972, her father was arrested and executed after an attempt to assassinate the king. Malika, her five younger brothers and sisters. and her mother were immediately imprisoned in a desert penal colony. After fifteen years, the last ten of which they spent locked up in solitary cells, the Oufkir children managed to dig a tunnel with their bare hands and make an audacious escape. Recaptured after five days, Malika was finally able to leave Morocco and begin a new life in exile in 1996. A heartrending account in the face of extreme deprivation and the courage with which one family faced its fate, Stolen Lives is an unforgettable story of one woman's journey to freedom.
Amazon.com
At the age of 5, Malika Oufkir, eldest daughter of General Oufkir, was adopted by King Muhammad V of Morocco and sent to live in the palace as part of the royal court. There she led a life of unimaginable privilege and luxury alongside the king's own daughter. King Hassan II ascended the throne following Muhammad V's death, and in 1972 General Oufkir was found guilty of treason after staging a coup against the new regime, and was summarily executed. Immediately afterward, Malika, her mother, and her five siblings were arrested and imprisoned, despite having no prior knowledge of the coup attempt. They were first held in an abandoned fort, where they ate moderately well and were allowed to keep some of their fine clothing and books. Conditions steadily deteriorated, and the family was eventually transferred to a remote desert prison, where they suffered a decade of solitary confinement, torture, starvation, and the complete absence of sunlight. Oufkir's horrifying descriptions of the conditions are mesmerizing, particularly when contrasted with her earlier life in the royal court, and many graphic images will long haunt readers. Finally, teetering on the edge of madness and aware that they had been left to die, Oufkir and her siblings managed to tunnel out using their bare hands and teaspoons, only to be caught days later. Her account of their final flight to freedom makes for breathtaking reading. Stolen Lives is a remarkable book of unfathomable deprivation and the power of the human will to survive.
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Customer Reviews:
• Stolen Lives 29 May, 2008
Incredible story. I just recently returned from Morocco, and while there wondered how many such prisoners are still lingering in the country's prisons. The people of Morocco and kind and friendly, as a whole friendlier than in most countries I have visited. Not once did I hear an unkind word or saw a grumpy face on people I encountered. Absolutely lovely. With that in mind, in the story of her 20 years of imprisonment and the subsequent "Freedom" describing the return to life outside a prison system, the kindness and forgiveness she expresses are much easier to understand.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A18EPKE0KX6W6R
• Great Book Very Inspiring I Love Every Moment 18 April, 2008
This book touch me so much i every it so much. This book inspire and enlighten me and show me a little of what goes on in other part the world and what women and people have to go through. To see the strength and desire one have to endure and survive and show that world. THis book touch my life. Good book. I love Oprah so much as she has allowed me to open a new world and that is reading i love Oprah book club and i try to read as much of Oprah book. She is my idol i worship her. I love you Oprah you are light in the dark night.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A7VGFD5BHISF4
• Excellent Read. Pulls You Into The Drama 03 February, 2008
I recommend this book if you want to escape from your normal daily life to experience the trials and tribulations of the author. I felt as though I was her at times and felt her pain and joy. It is an excellent read and also informative of a different culture.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AU7N76T4ZJB51
• A Remarkable, Harrowing True Story 12 May, 2008
Meet the Oufkir family. This is the printed condensation of their amazing survival.
Malika Oufikir, aided by writer Michele Fitoussi, recounts the plunge from the heights of an extremely privileged, if secluded, life, mostly lived at the Royal Moroccan court, and a life which later landed herself and her family into gaol, in 1972. A drastic change for everybody -but "drastic" is almost a diminishing adjective for what they went through-, including the two family retainers who had volunteered to share their fate. This was the result of a failed military coup against King Hassan II, led by Malika's father, General Oufkir, who was shot immediately after. Wife Fatima and their six children, aged between 19 (Malika) and 3 and a half (Abdellatif) were sent to prison. Deprivations, humiliations, isolation -even among themselves, they were not allowed to see each other for many years- lack of hygiene, food, water, medicines and contending their space with various rodents, cockroaches, scorpions, in the chilling cold or the most stifling heat, inability to see the light -they were kept in almost total darkness-. Up until the day when, 15 years later, with the resilience of the totally desperate, some of them managed to escape, Malika included. The tale of their evasion is chilling from beginning to end. But it also led to the liberation of the others left behind. Nobody could believe that the Oufkir children had reemerged from nothingness, but they managed to alert the relevant authorities, international press and word went out. They were all subsequently moved to a different location where they were still imprisoned but at least with more dignity -if one may use this term in the circumstances-. This went on for another 4 years. And then... freedom finally knocked at their door. Almost twenty years had gone by.
Forget for a minute about politics, religions, different countries, traditions, beliefs. Sufferings do not bear different classifications depending on whom we are, what we do. To suffer is to suffer, anywhere on this planet, and no one is immune. But. To pay up in such dramatic way for something beyond your control is just inhuman. Malika's voice, plain yet effective, summarizes details which induce cringing sensations.
Some reviewers comment on Malika's self-centeredness, sensing a certain degree of superiority, no doubt deriving, in my opinion, from the imprint of her privileged upbringing, which might have added a somewhat unsympathetic nuance to the story. Others remark that there are inconsistencies. It is true in some instances. From a personal point of view, I myself never quite understood why Malika was adopted into the royal family. It could be Moroccan customs or traditions of which I am not aware, but it was never really explained.
But. Never mind. Let's face the facts, get to the gist. Prisoners for twenty years for something they didn't commit? Children raised into squalor and fear, without an ounce of dignity? Let us keep things into perspective and grant Malika and the others the deserved praise for enduring their adverse fate and unfathomable conditions, never letting go, organizing their great escape against all odds. Without her, who dug and bled, bled and dug for months, relentlessly, this could not have happened, and none of us would have read this book.
A single, soaring voice raising above a twenty-year-long cry in the dark, reminding us that for one who manages to survive, many other faceless, nameless beings perish silently, in many different countries, for many different reasons, their weeping unheard, obliterated by enforced silence.
Read this book and count your blessings.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3HZKNZY9KKQZA
• A Powerful Story 01 April, 2008
This was a very touching story. As some people have mentioned it is very simply written. But I believe it gets the story across even though it is written in this manner. She tells of the conditions she and her family and a family friend endured when imprisoned for 20 years. Going from a luxury jail to prison conditions that are beyond what anyone can imagine. It is not a story you read for fun but one to make you see what others go though. I am glad Malika shared hers and her familys' story with us. I will never forget this book. I would definatley recommend this book for all to read.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1W4VKFRJUIPRN
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