![]() ![]() In August 1972, her father's failed attempt to overthrow King Hassan brought an abrupt end to nineteen-year-old Malika's storybook youth. Adopted at age five by King Muhammad V (the first king of an independent Morocco and King Hassan II's father) and raised at the royal court, Oufkir begins her book with wondrous tales of an anachronistic seraglio life in a North African palace. Malika Oufkir is the eldest daughter of General Muhammad Oufkir, the brutal and much-feared Minister of the Interior for King Hassan II, Morocco's ruler from 1961–1999. Her reception is striking, not least because American interest in Middle Eastern and North African culture is so often reduced to the question, "Why do they hate us?" Still, the way her story was told in the United States-without historical or political context-raises troubling questions. 1 Oufkir-who also appeared on 60 Minutes, the Today Show, the Rosie O'Donnell Show, and NPR-recounted her imprisonment, torture, and extraordinary reversal of fortune at the hands of the Moroccan government, for rapt American audiences. ![]() ![]() Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert JailĮarlier this year, the Oprah Winfrey Show featured Malika Oukfir, whose Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail was both an Oprah book of the month club selection, and a New York Times non-fiction bestseller. ![]()
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