Burned Alive
Jan. 26th, 2007 12:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goodreadsTitle: Burned alive
Author: Souad
Genre: Non-fiction, cultural
Rating: 9/10
# pages: 334
Date read: January, 2007
Summary: When she was 18, her brother-in-law poured gasoline on her and set her aflame. She was meant to die because she was pregnant and unmarried, bringing disgrace to her parents. But she survived, and now, 25 years later, "Souad" bears witness to the horror of "honor crimes" that kill thousands of women every year in many countries across the world. She begins with a bitter account of what it was like to grow up female in a remote Palestinian village in the Occupied Territory. "Being born a girl was a curse." Unlike her brother, she never went to school. Her father beat her daily. She worked as a shepherd, a "consenting slave." She barely glimpsed the city, where women were free to work and move around. Her rescuer was Jacqueline, a European aid worker, who was in the Middle East to care for children in distress and who arranged for the badly burned young woman to be flown to Switzerland, where she and her newborn baby received medical care and support. Today Souad is "somewhere in Europe," married with three children, her testimony still anonymous for her protection. Occasional chapters by Jacqueline fill in the wider context, but it's the immediacy of the shocking first-person narrative that drives home the statistics. (From Amazon.com)
Review: This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. I felt like crying when I finished it, because it's so horrible that things like this happen.
While reading it, I believed it was a true story. However, after reading the reviews on Amazon, I see that many people believe it's fiction and have good arguments for their case, so now I'm confused. Honour crimes DO happen, this I know as there have been several just in Denmark over the past few years, but do they happen to the extreme described in this book? I don't know. It's still a good book, and addresses a subject which is and shouldn't be taboo, but perhaps one should think twice before taking every word as the gospel truth.
Book List
Author: Souad
Genre: Non-fiction, cultural
Rating: 9/10
# pages: 334
Date read: January, 2007
Summary: When she was 18, her brother-in-law poured gasoline on her and set her aflame. She was meant to die because she was pregnant and unmarried, bringing disgrace to her parents. But she survived, and now, 25 years later, "Souad" bears witness to the horror of "honor crimes" that kill thousands of women every year in many countries across the world. She begins with a bitter account of what it was like to grow up female in a remote Palestinian village in the Occupied Territory. "Being born a girl was a curse." Unlike her brother, she never went to school. Her father beat her daily. She worked as a shepherd, a "consenting slave." She barely glimpsed the city, where women were free to work and move around. Her rescuer was Jacqueline, a European aid worker, who was in the Middle East to care for children in distress and who arranged for the badly burned young woman to be flown to Switzerland, where she and her newborn baby received medical care and support. Today Souad is "somewhere in Europe," married with three children, her testimony still anonymous for her protection. Occasional chapters by Jacqueline fill in the wider context, but it's the immediacy of the shocking first-person narrative that drives home the statistics. (From Amazon.com)
Review: This is a book that will stay with you for a long time. I felt like crying when I finished it, because it's so horrible that things like this happen.
While reading it, I believed it was a true story. However, after reading the reviews on Amazon, I see that many people believe it's fiction and have good arguments for their case, so now I'm confused. Honour crimes DO happen, this I know as there have been several just in Denmark over the past few years, but do they happen to the extreme described in this book? I don't know. It's still a good book, and addresses a subject which is and shouldn't be taboo, but perhaps one should think twice before taking every word as the gospel truth.
Book List
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Date: 2007-01-28 18:26 (UTC)I've read a few books about women's accounts of living in, well, strict Muslim countries - Not Without My Daughter (set in Iran - no honour crimes in this but still scary), and one I forget the title but she was a princess in the Saudi royal family, which is mammoth, and the interesting thing was her cheeky tone, she was constantly pushing against the boundaries and was lucky enough (relatively) to have a non-vicious husband. But there were accounts of daughters being locked in little rooms and starved, of daughters being drowned in the swimming pool because of indiscretions.
There's a really good film, called Osama, which was the first movie to be filmed in Afghanistan since the war started, I think you'd like, though it can be pretty disturbing.