Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi, 293 pages

  The stuff of great fiction here: princesses, kings, harems, palace intrigue, treason, murder, wrongful imprisonment, struggle beyond understandable human endurance, strong relationships, escape, capture, resolution, and hope. Elements of a great story (and a compelling book), however, aren’t necessarily experiences I would wish on actual people, and certainly not in relation to this particular story. This is an autobiography.

  Through these pages, with the assistance of journalist Michele Fitoussi, almost 50-year-old Malika Oufkir (former Moroccan princess) tells about her life.

  I’m glad that Malika got to tell her family’s story to the world and that I read it. My heart hurts for humanity that the experiences in the book actually happened.