Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe everything you read
Review: As an American woman who lived in Morocco for five years, as both a Peace Corps Volunteer and then as a private citizen, I found this book to be at first interesting but ultimately deeply unsatisfying. STOLEN LIVES tells the story of Malika Oufkir, daughter of strongman General Oufkir, righthand man of King Hassan II of Morocco. Starting life as a pampered girl who is virtually adopted by the King and lives in the palace as a companion for his young sister, she ends up a political prisoner, who along with her family and two servants is imprisoned for almost twenty years in increasingly deplorable conditions. Eventually, she and her family make a dramatic escape and well.. the rest is an Oprah-esque happy ending. Though I enjoyed the voyeuristic look into the Moroccan royal palace, and was kept interested in the increasingly harsh conditions in the infamous Moroccan prison Bir Jdid, ultimately I found this book to be incredibly implausible and deeply unsatisfying. It is certainly true that there were significant human rights violations occurring in Morocco during the time that this book describes-- it is also plausible that the Oufkir family did endure some of the harsh conditions described in the book. To me, however, the story of their escape was flat-out unbelievable. I also felt frustrated by the fact that the story does nothing to illuminate the complex situation in a country where a tiny elite rides from palace to palace in chauffeur driven limousines while the vast majority of the population live in dire poverty. I am sorry that this book will probably be widely read, as it paints a picture of this complex and fascinating country that is lopsided, sensationalistic, and laced with untruths.
Rating: 
Summary: Strength of spirit, strength of heart!
Review: A remarkable memoir written by the daughter of a Moroccan general who was foiled in an attempted takeover of King Hassan II. In retaliation the King imprisoned General Oufkir’s wife and their 6 children for 20 years.Malika tells her story with all the intensity of a doomed soul that has been blessed by a second chance. Her life in prison had become a black hole of suffering and torment, neglected and half starved, she lived with the threat of rats, scorpions, diptheria, typhoid and succumbed to a case of peritonitis that left her in a coma fighting for her very life without medical intervention. She started to believe she and her family were indeed protected by a mysterious presence. In their fourteenth year of imprisonment an escape plan is formulated that leads the reader to share in the intense joy and trepidation that the author must have felt, a light loomed at the end of the black tunnel that had become her life. This is the first non-fiction Oprah selection, and one of her best choices ever. It makes a statement about human rights that will never be forgotten by the reader. Hopefully it will reach out to the four corners of the globe and make a difference in the lives of others. I am awed and amazed by the coping strategies and psychological triumph of the human spirit over what appears to be such a hopeless situation. Much happiness to you Malika Oufkir, you have certainly earned it...
Rating:
Summary: This is such a moving book
Review: I wasn't even aware that human rights violations existed in Morocco until I read this book. Malika Oufkir was separated from her family and raised in the palace of the king of Morocco at age 5. Malika was separated from her family, because she was seen as an ideal playmate for the king's daughter who was about the same age. She lived a pampered life with servants. However, Malika dreamed of freedom and suffered from profound loneliness. She got so lonely to the point where she tried to committ suicide as a child. She was imprisoned at age 18 with her entire family after her father General Oufkir attempted to kill the king Hassen II in an effort to depose him. Deprivation was a fact of life. They lacked everything from adequate food, books, health care, and even human contact. One sibling suffered from anorexia. Another sibling suffered from epileptic fits. It was Malika who took care of everyone who got sick. The youngest of 7 siblings was deprived of everything being only 3 years old when imprisoned. The family even experienced solitary confinement for long periods of time. I was amazed at how well Malika and her oldest brother Raouf educated their younger siblings early in their incarceration material was taken away She taught her young siblings how to read and write in French, Arabic and English. Brother Raouf helped with math and geography. They entertained themselves by making up stories and putting on shows for one another. They made toys for the little ones of wood and cardboard. They used Tide detergent to wash themselves with. The Oufkir family escaped from jail and such poor conditions in 1987 after 15 years. They were to be imprisoned again in a nice house but still surrounded by guards for more 5 years. I learned from reading this book that true freedom does not always mean a change in surroundings. True freedom happens when people are free to choose how they want to live their lives. This is an excellent read.
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Summary: Can't belive it's a true story
Review: You have to read ths book...iT's amazing cause this book it's a true story about the lives of a family in jail.while i was altready ALIVE , and i am only 30 years old. so i am not so OLD , and i can't belive this people went o so much HORROR for 20 years ....I ask myelf were was the UNITED NATIONS and what about the HUMAN RIGHTS? The book is really great and i love the way they wrote the book. Congratulations and do not miss this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks Emotion
Review: This book had a lot of hype but falls short of drawing me into the main characters. It reminds me of the old TV series, "Dragnet." Just the facts Maam, just the facts. Malika is moved here, there, suffers this and suffers that..then moves again...Their imprisonment is horrendous but the author goes from fact to fact and doesn't let me into the soul of Malika. I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: An "A" for Awareness
Review: If this moving book does nothing other than make readers more aware of the fate of political prisoners in nations such as Morocco, where human rights are regularly abused, then Oufkir has done her job very well. I saw Malika Oufkir on several talk shows and knew I had to read her story of survival, which was first published in France two years ago as "The Prisoner". She spoke with great calm and dignity, and with very little anger or rancor towards those who were responsible for the loss of twenty years of her life. She says that having spent most of her life as an onlooker, there is a "sheet of glass" between herself and the outside world." I think this explains her calm demeanor. Malika was a happy-go-lucky 19 year old party girl in Morocco, having lived in the palace as the "adopted" companion of the king's daughter. Suddenly she, her mother, a cousin, a former nurse, and her five younger brothers and sisters were imprisoned because of her father's actions. Their once-elegant world shrank ---the next 20 years were spent in several prison sites in southern Morocco where they were basically forgotten. They were the "disappeared". General Oufkir, the power-hungry head of Morocco's notorious security forces, had operated with King Hassan's knowledge for many years. When he finally turned on the king, he was caught and executed. His family members were considered "criminals by descent" and found themselves at the mercy of their jailers, of disease and vermin, and of hunger. Even after they managed to escape and appealed to the media (after 15 years of imprisonment), the Oufkirs were held under house arrest for four more years, then denied passports for another five years. This is a story that should be read widely and discussed at length. How these people survived (some more intact than others) is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit. How they got through each day, how Malika taught the younger children, how they bargained for survival.....the trials they endured were and are unconscionable in the civilized world. Although her book is poignant and heart-rending, it is never hysterical or melodramatic. It should embarrass the Moroccan government, but that is not why Malika wrote it. She says that "vengeance would be meaningless in our case. Is there anything that can give back your childhood, your youth, your life?"
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Summary: Beautifully Articulated Story - A Must Read
Review: I thought this book was truly phenomenal. Fitoussi writes a beautiful foreword to introduce the book and, of course, Oufkir describes so eloquently and in such incredible detail her life before imprisonment and her (and her family's) experience(s) in prison.I was completely enraptured by her story and so incredibly impressed with her vivid recollection of seemingly every detail and of her poignant words chosen to tell her story. The incorrect grammar from time to time, to me, only serves to reinforce the authenticity of her story and, as stated by Fitoussi in her foreword, the integrity of Oufkir's words - to change a single word translated by Oufkir would only serve to sacrifice Oufkir's story as she recalls it or not honor her intentions. I highly recommend this book - it provides a stimulating education of Morrocan culture and customs and a heart-wrenching description of a family's horrible ordeal. One can not help but feel tremendous emphathy for them.
Rating: 
Summary: A poignant Memoir!
Review: Ia m surprised that Oprah picked a work of nonfiction for her May selection, yet I am quite pleased! This book is very sad, but there is inspiration reaped through her trials and tribulations. It is difficult to become immersed in at first, but trust me it gets better.
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Summary: an emotional story of a family's suffering ...
Review: This book describes in detail the pain and torment the Oufkir family suffered for over twenty years.Malika was adopted by the king and raised like a princess.When her father tried to assassinate the king, he was murdered and his family would suffer the consequences. Malika's brother was only three at the time and her sister also suffered epilepsy.They were kept in isolation,starved and denied their freedom.They had no choice but to eat the molded bread with rat droppings and rotten eggs that turned green.When the guards realized the children liked pigeons,they would cook them two at a time to torment them. Their love for life is what kept them sane throughout all those years.They were robbed of their youth and freedom.Malika tells her story as if it happened yesterday.Her strength is admirable and you could feel her pain as if you were there.You experience her emotions throughout the book and become attached to her. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.I read the book without putting it down until my eyes hurt.I never lost interest and felt so much compassion towards Malika and her family.
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Summary: Important, inspiring and readable
Review: Despite a few problems with the English translation (odd use of idioms, out-of-date expressions), and despite some 'lacunae', holes in the story which could have been filled in by interesting details, this book ends up being a very good read. The author, Malika, age 18, is taken, in the 1970s, with her mother, four younger siblings and two other women friends, political prisoners in Morocco, and held in unconscionable prison conditions for fifteen, finally twenty years, ending finally during the '90s. This is unfathomable. They never know if anyone remembers them or cares. Yet these childen (the youngest is 3 at the start) together, by telling themselves stories, acting out plays, teaching each other what they know, passing on sustaining bits of news from a small hidden radio when they were put eventually into separate cells, making use of found herbs and weeds for sandwich fillers, ingeniously creating food dishes that are palatable with ingredients they are given that had often gone bad, treating their illnesses and wounds themselves, Malika creating and nightly telling a long, many-peopled story of kings and knights and intrigues, keep themselves alive. --Despite a temporary group despair, once, in which they all decide to commit suicide, and fail. Having faced death, in poor health and weakened, putting aside their fears of punishment, together they decide to live and strategize so cleverly they build a tunnel at night, each early morning hauling out earth and concealing it, painstakingly covering up and plastering the signs of it (ingeniously with plaster made of Tide and the bits of plaster the guards left to seal up the rats' holes which they kept soaked so it wouldn't harden) so the guards won't find it on their daily rounds, and four of them escape for a few days. Formally jet-setting, party-going aristocrats, after their 15 years away from civilization, the four find themselves in a world they barely recognize (television in color?!) and which is shockingly noisy, bright and complicated; when they attempt to get help, they find themselves pariahs; for the most part, old friends are afraid of having anything to do with them; yet they do get the news of their plight to the outside world and hire a lawyer before being recaptured. (Though 'forgotten', they were already famous; the author had been brought up by the king from age 5 to 16 and treated as a Moroccan princess--and therefore, a different kind of prisoner; their father, who was killed in a failed coup, had been the second most powerful man in Morocco.) Due to the resulting publicity, the King allows the rest out with them but only to retain them all for five years more under house arrest -- finally allowing them as much food as they want, and other things we consider necessities,like real beds and bathrooms and the absence of all kinds of vermin in the living quarters, but still guarded and not free. (Their health has never recovered.) -- Where were their friends during this time and why didn't they help free them? Yet even their grandfather could not find them or send them any more books or letters after the first ten years -- no one knew where they were -- he believed rumors that certain ones of them were dead. And Moroccans, living in a repressive monarchy, dared not speak out. Yet, this real story highlights the lack of courage of very many unincarcerated people everywhere, when it comes to standing up for and risking something in the face of injustice -- it was widely known that this family had been incarcerated; people, on the whole, it seems, just want to be left alone to live their own lives. As a trauma therapist, and having read the statements of the co-writer/interviewer, who says that she pushed the author very hard to remember (the excruciating, frightening details), to the point sometimes of exhausting her, the lacunae are understandable -- it is twenty unbroken years of horror to remember, and the main facts get across. Though I still had so many questions, the rest of the story is detailed enough to have kept my interest thoroughly. Some of the relationships of the prisoners to each other are described, their teamwork and dependency on each other, how the usual modesty or separation of child to parent is erased and all have become equal by the end and say pretty much anything to each other; albeit through a complicated, ingenious makeshift telephone system made up of wires and metal bedstead legs which they pass under their walls into the next cells (and which they dismantle and hide between their legs every morning so the guards won't find it. And what of the youngest, the boy who went into jail at age three? Can we imagine the development of this child who can't remember school, friendships, fresh air, running, playing large, physical games? --The others taught him to read and told him stories in prison, even creating a 'football' out of old rags and teaching him the rules of the game and the current players from the radio, but it seems they may have neglected explanations of a cultural/political nature and protected him a bit too much (his sister is shocked to realize when, as new escapees, she sees his reactions in the busy, complicated, strange new world, 'he is an enfant sauvage!'.) This question also arises: what of hundreds and thousands of political prisoners who are held all over the world for years in squalid conditions and die in prison (as these were meant to do) and are forgotten and have no means to escape? What I am left with most profoundly after finishing this story is the utter daily, endless ingenuity put forth by each of these courageous people given virtually no encouragement from anyone but themselves.
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