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Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arab, by Jean Sasson
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Sultana is a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born to fabulous, uncountable wealth. She has four mansions on three continents, her own private jet, glittering jewels, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind her black floor-length veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband, her sons, and her country.Sultana is a member of the Saudi royal family, closely related to the king. For the sake of her daughters, she has decided to take the risk of speaking out about the life of women in her country, regardless of their rank. She must hide her identity for fear that the religous leaders in her country would call for her death to punish her honesty. Only a woman in her position could possibly hope to escape from being revealed and punished, despite her cloak and anonymity.Sultana tells of her own life, from her turbulent childhood to her arranged marriage--a happy one until her husband decided to displace her by taking a second wife--and of the lives of her sisters, her friends and her servants. Although they share affection, confidences and an easy camaraderie within the confines of the women's quarters, they also share a history of appaling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations; thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the women's room, a padded, windowless cell where women are confined with neither light nor conversation until death claims them.By speaking out, Sultana risks bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and te heads of her children. But by telling her story to Jean Sasson, Sultana has allowed us to see beyond the veils of this secret society, to the heart of a nation where sex, money, and power reign supreme.
- Sales Rank: #24711 in Books
- Brand: Windsor-Brooke Books, LLC
- Published on: 2010-01-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.40" h x .90" w x 5.50" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Features
From Publishers Weekly
In this consistently gripping work, a Literary Guild alternate selection in cloth, the American-born Sasson recounts the life story of a Saudi princess she met while living in Saudi Arabia, offering a glimpse of the appalling conditions endured by even privileged women in the Middle East. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
One must keep in mind the context of time and place when reading this emotional and exciting book to alleviate some of the horror of the injustices endured by the women described here. Equality of men and women has not worked out in any society, but the status of women in Islam is more problematic in that canon law is applied according to the social climate. Consequently, countries influenced by the West, such as Egypt, are more relaxed than countries like Saudi Arabia that are ruled by strict Hanbali law, which subjects women to unwelcome marriages, execution at whim, and the boredom of purdah . In this book, Sasson ( The Rape of Kuwait , Knightsbridge Pub. Co., 1991) tells the fascinating story of "Sultana," an unidentified Saudi princess who yearns for recognition in her own right, not as an adjunct of men. For those who wish to know more, Soraya Altorki's Women in Saudi Arabia ( LJ 1/86) and Paryeen Shaukat Ali's Status of Women in the Muslim World (Aziz Pub., 1975. o.p.) are good. Recommended for popular collections. (Illustrations not seen.) Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/92.
- Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Sasson (The Rape of Kuwait, 1991--not reviewed) brings us ``Sultana,'' a pseudonymous member of the Saudi royal family whose memoir documents the suffocating sexism that pervades Saudi life. From minute one, Sultana got the message that only men mattered. Her father had three wives in addition to her mother; her brother, Ali, had sovereignty over his ten sisters. Sultana, we learn, crafted constant rebellions, from smashing Ali's Rolex to leaving his pornographic slides--on which he'd printed his name--at the local mosque for the religious police to find. Arranged marriages were the norm: Sultana was lucky in being matched with a liberal, distant cousin (she was also lucky in being spared the common practice of ritual genital mutilation). She had children, battled her husband, and was thrilled during the Gulf War by reports of the 47 Saudi women who bucked the law and drove in the streets of Riyadh (although rumors persist that one of the group was put to death by her father). But Sasson's device of telling Sultana's story in the first person trivializes the princess's important material. Her voice echoes that of a pulp-fiction heroine (``I was drowning in Kareem's eyes...''), and the endless vignettes of her feistiness--especially the incident of her brother's pornography--verge on incredible. But when Sultana stops talking about herself and takes time to observe, we get amazing details: of Saudi wealth (British interior decorators were imported to redo Sultana's suite on the maternity ward), and of cultural brutality (one friend, caught propositioning foreigners, was drowned by her father in the family swimming pool; another, in punishment for having an affair with a Westerner, was confined to a darkened room for life). Worth paging past the trivial, then, to absorb a chilling and enraging portrait of women's absolute powerlessness in Saudi society. (Fifteen b&w photos, maps--not seen.) -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
308 of 321 people found the following review helpful.
Overwhelming Truth and Insight
By A Customer
As an American Muslim woman who once lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, I became overwhelmed by Sultana's compelling account. As a Muslim, I appreciated her explicit reminder that the transgressions of the Saudi men depicted in the work did not represent Islam. Rather, their misinterpretation of the Quran and Haddith led them to oppress the women of their country, not their true and accurate following of our religion. As one who has worn the abaaya and the veil, and who has met countless women trapped in polygamy in Saudi Arabia and in the United States, I can relate to her experience. Yet, as I was fortunate to be an American in Saudi Arabia, I often did not have to deal firsthand with the cultural oppression of Saudi men; however, I feel that her plight and those of our Muslim sisters is my own. Although Sultana comes from the wealthiest of Saudi families, she accurately and adequately represents the lives of most Saudi women, regardless of socioeconomic status. Her story is real and true; she did not exaggerate or stretch the truth. This work deservedly holds a position as one of the top 500 books for and about women, and should be read by everyone.
142 of 146 people found the following review helpful.
A Women's Rights Must-Read
By Katherine Fritz
In the course of the true life stories found in the book Princess, by Jean P. Sasson, the reader becomes enveloped in the terrible and heart-wrenching lifestyles of middle-eastern women. Through the course of the narrative, though horrifying stories are related in a truly eye-opening manner, the reader discovers a true slice of Princess Sultana's imaginative and vivacious personality, and weeps as it slowly becomes lost in the process of womanhood in Saudi Arabia. "The history of our women is buried behind the black veil of secrecy. Neither our births or deaths are made official in any public record. The common emotion expressed at the birth of a female is either sorrow or shame." These few sentences, which bring about the whole theme of the non-entity of women, lead us to much more shocking crimes against women which, in that society, are not considered to be crimes whatsoever. The stories of Nadia, who was drowned in the family pool by her father as a way of "protecting her honor", her sister Sara, who attempted suicide after being sold as a wife to a sick and sexually brutal elderly man, and a brave Filipino maid named Madeline, who was raped nightly by all the male members of the family she served under, illustrate how Jean Sasson was able to intertwine other supporting character's stories with the life of Princess Sultana effectively and believably. Some stories, which show how these incredibly courageous women, can survive in this kind of life, bring the reader to cry and cheer simultaneously. Others, which, sadly, lack the happy ending we could hope for, are gut-wrenching due to the fact that they are horribly true. Behind the black veil of the Muslim women lie incredibly diverse personalities, characters, and spirits, which come alive to us through the voice of Sultana. I admired how the life of one woman, who lived a lifestyle vastly different from those of her readers, could showcase such a passion for life that I was able to relate to her and her stories. While listening to her descriptions of daily crimes against others like her and her description of her feelings of powerlessness, causes the reader to have feelings of injustice stir within them. During the episode where Sultana finally uses her ingenuity to it's potential and manages to flee her country and abusive husband, you are able to applaud her efforts and cheer her on. Overall, this book becomes a touching experience for most, if not all, who read it. Through the coldheartedness of males such as Ali, her brother, and her father, it is a miracle that Sultana manages to respect members of the male race when it is entirely obvious that they have little, if any, respect for her. "I waited for my destiny to unfold, a child as helpless as an insect trapped in a wicked web not of it's own making." Although this statement was Sultana's, it translates the general feeling of oppression hidden behind the black veil in the middle east. Indeed, these words could have been spoken by nearly every female character in the book, because they all, at one point in time, are overcome with the feeling of helplessness and realize that there is not one person who can deliver them from whatever circumstance they are in, because they are all suppressed by the male race. The men are nearly all, with the exception of King Faisal, portrayed as the iron fist in the velvet glove. Their views of women, and how they make their opinions clear, is extraordinarily chilling and saddening. The dignity, the souls, and occasionally, the lives of these women are lost throughout the course of the book. The issues that are addressed, such as honor killings, sexual slavery, arranged marriages, and female genital mutilation, all bring to mind the horrors that still exist today. In conclusion, although this is first of all a must-read for anyone with an interest in human rights and women's rights, I would strongly recommend it to anyone. It touches the heart and stirs the soul so that the reader cannot help but be moved by the stories of these women. Hopefully, with this book's publication, the fact that Sultana risked her life to allow her story to be heard will not have gone in vain.
198 of 212 people found the following review helpful.
Additional Truths about this life Behind the Veil
By A Customer
I am an unbiased reader, yet one with first-hand knowledge of social customs of Saudi Arabia. I lived for over 8 years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and worked as a nurse in the King Faisal Spec Hosp and Research Ctr. Anyone with the slightest understanding of the Kingdom and the manner of life for women in that country is fully aware that the stories told in Princess is the sad reality of life for women in that country. The only people who have a hard time believing Jean Sasson are people who have never lived in Saudi or possibly jealous people who simply want to attack a good book. As a nurse, I personally cared for Saudi women at the hospital who had endured horrible acts of cruelty from their Saudi husbands. I can say with certainty that many of the stories told by Jean Sasson are duplicated many times over in the daily lives of women in that country. I took care of a 13year old girl, who was suicidal because she was being forced to marry a very old man in his late 60's. She considered herself bright, and she was, and wanted to be educated and have some choice later in life who she was to marry, but this was her parents decision. They would either give drug therapy or electrical shock in some cases to make the women more compliant! I was the nurse in charge when a Saudi princess was locked away in a private room in the hospital. She had been abducted from the West by her own government and was forced to return to the Kingdom. The look on that poor woman's face when she discovered she had been drugged by her own American doctor and brought back into the country on a private jet, I will never forget! (The American doctor and his wife had accompanied the Saudi woman, and they went shopping daily, returning to the hospital with priceless jewelry that had been their payment for the duplicity. It is not only Saudis that can be unfeeling when it comes to women!) To tell the truth, there were so many unbelievable horror stories, that I personally witnessed in that hospital, that I could write a similar book myself! I must say, that I love the way Jean tells the story. It is wonderfully readable and the stories remain with the reader forever. I recommend the book to all my friends and thus far, to a person, everyone has read the book straight through. If you want the real truth of Saudi Arabia and the lives of the women who live there, then I recommend this book. Signed "A nursing professional who worked for many years at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Reasearch Centre"
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