Rating: 
Summary: Concealed
Review: Malika Oufkir became a princess. Her story takes us into the normally inaccessible eidos of the Islamic Moroccan royal family. The consequent oppression and the resultant rush of freedom delivered to her as an immature teenager brings us to the middle of the book and the beginning of the twenty-five years of imprisonment she, her mother, her siblings, and two female relatives endured for the crimes of their patriarch, General Oufkir. I remain puzzled by certain behaviors--the irrational internal assurance they continued to have for the release that never came, the reason why they never resisted, or why it wasn't mentioned if they did. The hunger strikes they held intermittently through the years only seemed to injure themselves, not affect the King with sympathy, yet they continued with this tactic. They eventually escaped. Her tale of the days before their recapture is the best written section of the book. She never blames those who wouldn't help her, but she convinces the reader to. This book deserves reading and an honest try at understanding Malika Oufkir and the Moroccan culture that delivered her into the world.
Rating: 
Summary: A gripping tale with overtones from Exodus
Review: It is true that it is difficult to empathize with Malika as one might empathize with Nelson Mandela. As you've read, she was the daughter of one of King Muhammed V's most trusted generals. As such she was raised as a royal princess under his successor, King Hassan II. This immediately reminded me of the story of Moses and Pharoah from Exodus. She is the primary playmate of the King's daughter and lives a life of luxury.However, justice and punishment are dealt with very differently in this part of the world, and after Malika's father leads an unsuccessful coup/assassination attempt on King Hassan II, she and her family are imprisoned. It is difficult again to empathize - although they knew nothing of the coup, would each of us trust them if we were the target? They complain of being deprived of luxuries which most of us can only dream about. As they eventually are moved to barracks which are terribly conditioned, totally dark, and are basically marooned there, it becomes obvious to them they are to die there. Despite an escape and recapture, five years later they are freed. Malika achieves ultimate redemption when she is freed, and now lives in France, which had a colony in Morocco for some time. The parallel with Exodus is not perfect, to be sure. However, the 'princess' once expelled, finds herself in her journey through a considerably harsher wilderness and eventually does succeed, along with her family, in reaching their goal of freedom. This book will make you think. Most interestingly, you will realize after noticing that you didn't empathize as much with them as others in their situation, that you may think differently about yourself! After all, does anyone deserve that type of treatment? As you read this book and through periodic reality checks remember that it is true, you will realize that man's inhumanity to man has no end. You will also realize, as I believe Oprah did, that the spirit can overcome virtually anything. This book is not that expensive and I would recommend anyone with even a passing interest read it. It will be worth your while.
Rating: 
Summary: commercializing torture
Review: She and her family should never have been imprisoned without a trial or a defence of any sort. Probably unknowingly, she and her writer depict her as an extraordinarily unattractive human being. She is amongst the most privileged of the world and never, despite her ordeal, sems to have concerned herself with the less privileged or wondered about the others that might be detained or missing, justly or unjustly, in Morocco because of her father's attempted coup. There are, moreover, many internal contradictions in her story. Many cliches. Translated for a British audience.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible!!
Review: I waited with anticipation for the book to arrive and have to say that it was worth the wait. Incredibly written and translated, "Stolen Lives" was a fairy tale one moment and a horror story the next. Although, I could never relate with the main characters or even fathom being in situations that they had to face, it didn't deter me from reading the book in one sitting. An incredible book!!
Rating:
Summary: Change the way you view your life
Review: "Stolen Lives" is about the horror one family is forced to endure in Morocco when they are imprisoned for 20 years and starved nearly to death after their father tries to kill the King. Malika, along with her mother and brothers and sisters live in conditions that seem almost too awful to be real. Her youngest brother is only 3 years old when imprisoned, and after 20 years, when they are released, he knows nothing of the world. Concrete ground startles him, as all he knows is the dirt floor of his small prison cell that had to be his playground. This is an amazing story of the survival of the human spirit. If you compare your own life to the lives of this family, you will never again be able to judge your life in the same way. You will have to think about what is really important in life and what is the fluff that is just taking up precious time while you are living the one life we all get. This book is as gratifying as it is horrifying. It leaves you with many questions you'd personally like to ask Malika Oufkir, the woman the story is based on. I would recommend this book highly. For entertainment, but more importantly, for inspiration.
Rating: 
Summary: Shallow and Poorly Written
Review: After living off and on in Morocco for 7 years in the 90's I'd never actually heard of the Oufkirs but I did hear much of the supposed royal excess. I was always taken the stories with a grain of salt. To see them recounted on the pages of this book was interesting to say the least. It's too bad that this is so poorly written because the story definitely deserves to be told....please someone tell it with a bit more depth.
Rating:
Summary: From privilege to prison
Review: Malika Oufkir's book tells the story of high privilege and bitter starvation.
She was adopted by the Moroccan king and educated as a court princess with all the luxury she could dream off.
She gives us interesting and valuable information about life at the Moroccan court and in the king's harem.
Unfortunately, her father, the secong mightiest man in the country, staged a coup to kill the king, most probably to install a military dictatorship and not to put the king's son on the throne, as the author pretends in this book.
When the coup failed, her father was summarily executed and his direct family sent to prison, first in a guarded house and then in isolated cells on a diet of rotten eggs.
Malika Oufkir tells us pregnantly how she and her family could survive in this rather complete isolation: by staying in contact with each other and the outer world (through a hidden radio and more or less human guards), by doing sensible things (educating the younger children, telling stories), but most of all by dreaming of an escape.
The last part of the book reads like a thriller.
This book is a very impressive tale about human survival.
Rating: 
Summary: It is poorly written, but it is still interesting
Review: I was a bit confused in parts of the book and sometimes bored. I felt like I really never knew the people in the book, especially Malika, but it was still a very interesting book, just not told very well. The book had such potential. It was a lot or boring descriptions of her encourters with the King and her relatives, but I really did not "feel" her anger, her pain, her happiness. A lot of the time, I was confused! I felt like reading it was chore, but I am glad I read it. I feel a new sense of family and determination in difficult situations (no where near as difficult as Malika's though). I would give the book a five, if it was not soooo poorly written.
Rating:
Summary: UNBELIEVABLE, CAN THIS HAPPEN IN OUR AGE
Review: 1. "Stolen Lives, Twenty Years in a Desert Jail", is a book about Malika Oufkir, daughter of Morocco's once most powerful General (next only to King) and their family. This lady was adopted by Late King Muhammad V and was brought up as king's daughter in along with his biological daughter, Lalla Mina. This was one adoption, which was respected and continued by King Hassan II who succeeded his father to the throne.
2. Her life continued like a fairy tale from her adoption at the age of five till 1972, when her father fell off from king's favour. After a failed attempt on king's life, her father was arrested and executed.
3. Soon, at the age of 19, she along with her family, consisting of her mother and five siblings were arrested and jailed for 15 years out of which 10 years were in near solitary confinement. Their ordeal reduced a bit after Malika and there of her siblings managed to escape the prison by digging a tunnel and succeeded in bringing their existence and the inhumane treatment mated out to them to the notice of the world through one of the French radio channel. This resulted in their continued confinement, not in jail, but under house arrest. It is after 20 years, whole of her youth, that they were freed from confinement and she could leave Morocco in 1996.
4. It is a personal account and as such tends to over-emphasis few things, as it happens in all personal accounts. But the quality of the narrative is sterling, humane aspect of the story is moving, the treatment that was mated out to this family and the resistance they put up are worth reading. All in all one feels sorry for such sheer waste of beautiful youth of so many young children (six to be precise) for no fault of theirs. Well, one can only say that to some extent democracy is better then all these Monarchy.
5. Some of the things worth mentioning are: -
(a) That such thing happened in our lifetime, in civilized and
(b) modern world, makes you feel ashamed.
(b) The horrible treatment that was given to them is repulsive. Which form of justice it is to punish the family members for so-called crimes of the head of the family.
(c) Another important point stands out that if a family sticks together, they can withstand / overcome all odds / trials. That's how they managed to survive and maintain their sanity.
6. This one book (originally published in French as `La Prisonnier' and co-authored by Michele Fitoussi) is worth reading and cherishing as a icon of the triumph of Human mind and soul over strongest adversary.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Story...though sad
Review:
truly this is a story that should, and must be told. No one could believe that this could happen in this era, but it did. How she survived with dignity and courage will endear you to this magnificent woman.
Also recommended: Nightmares Echo, A Child Called It
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