Amazon.com
At the age of 5, Malika Oufkir, eldest daughter of General Oufkir, was adopted by King Muhammad V of Morocco and sent to live in the palace as part of the royal court. There she led a life of unimaginable privilege and luxury alongside the king's own daughter. King Hassan II ascended the throne following Muhammad V's death, and in 1972 General Oufkir was found guilty of treason after staging a coup against the new regime, and was summarily executed. Immediately afterward, Malika, her mother, and her five siblings were arrested and imprisoned, despite having no prior knowledge of the coup attempt.
They were first held in an abandoned fort, where they ate moderately well and were allowed to keep some of their fine clothing and books. Conditions steadily deteriorated, and the family was eventually transferred to a remote desert prison, where they suffered a decade of solitary confinement, torture, starvation, and the complete absence of sunlight. Oufkir's horrifying descriptions of the conditions are mesmerizing, particularly when contrasted with her earlier life in the royal court, and many graphic images will long haunt readers. Finally, teetering on the edge of madness and aware that they had been left to die, Oufkir and her siblings managed to tunnel out using their bare hands and teaspoons, only to be caught days later. Her account of their final flight to freedom makes for breathtaking reading. Stolen Lives is a remarkable book of unfathomable deprivation and the power of the human will to survive.
Book Description
A gripping memoir that reads like a political thriller--the story of Malika Oufkir's turbulent and remarkable life. Born in 1953, Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of Morocco's closest aide. Adopted by the king at the age of five, Malika spent most of her childhood and adolescence in the seclusion of the court harem, one of the most eligible heiresses in the kingdom, surrounded by luxury and extraordinary privilege.
Then, on August 16, 1972, her father was arrested and executed after an attempt to assassinate the king. Malika, her five younger brothers and sisters. and her mother were immediately imprisoned in a desert penal colony. After fifteen years, the last ten of which they spent locked up in solitary cells, the Oufkir children managed to dig a tunnel with their bare hands and make an audacious escape. Recaptured after five days, Malika was finally able to leave Morocco and begin a new life in exile in 1996.
A heartrending account in the face of extreme deprivation and the courage with which one family faced its fate, Stolen Lives is an unforgettable story of one woman's journey to freedom.
Customer Reviews:
Incredible Story - Deserved Better Editor.......2007-09-10
I am very disappointed in some of the reviews that I have read about this book; thank goodness they are the minority. Yes, I agree that it was poorly edited, and the story that was being relayed really could have been told better. It disturbs me that some of the reviewers almost appeared to attack the author. This lady is not an author/writer; she's no Stephen King or Dan Brown. Those authors have the advantage of fiction on their respective sides. Malika Oufkir had no such advantage. She is a survivor who had to actually live the hell that she describes in her book.
Imagine being a political prisoner - your only crime being that you were related to someone who either did something terrible against the country or "allegedly" did so - you are living in conditions of squalor. Your captors want you to die, but don't want to necessarily pull the trigger. You are starved, not allowed outside, not allowed to see or feel the sun, and deprived of the most basic information such as the date and time. You watch your sister pick the rat droppings from pieces of stale bread before "happily" consuming it. You watch your three-year old brother's life as a political prisoner. That's what you lived for most of two decades. Finally, years after being released, you get the courage to tell your story so that the world has a chance to know what you have been through, and that political imprisonment is not the cake walk or country club behind bars that it has been touted through the years. For months, you fight through the tears and the recollections of the circumstances and events that above all, you mostly want to forget. Then, proud that you were able to clear that final hurdle, you read the book reviews on Amazon only to find that one reader finds the book "difficult to believe" and even "boring." The nerve of some people to sit in their air conditioned homes with their refrigerator and freezer full, to sit at their computer with access to the world, to not be able to look past the flaws of the book to see the real story. If this was fiction, I could see the criticism, but given the storyline and the simple fact that it was fact, I simply cannot justify attacking the author about the quality of the book. Her experience has forever changed her and her reaction to life itself.
Bottom line - this was a riveting story that could have been a riveting book. I give the story itself 5+ stars. I hope Ms. Oufkir and her family are proud that they survived such an incredulous nightmare. I was left wanting more information, but I personally feel fortunate to have received what information I got; Ms. Oufkir didn't have to put her ordeal in writing. The editing gets one star. The editor and publisher failed Ms. Oufkir and should be ashamed that her story was not given the very best attention to detail. It almost seems as though the book was rushed to go to print, and Ms. Oufkir's story suffered the consequences. And that is a real travesty.
Survival Story.......2007-08-30
Because of her father's treachery in attempting to assassinate the king of Morocco, Malika, her mother, her siblings and two family friends are imprisoned in the desert. For years they live in tiny cells infested with bugs and mice who battle them for their near-starvation rations. Finally they make a desperate move to tunnel out of their prison and alert the international news media of their imprisonment, which puts sufficient pressure on the king to free them.
Malika's life wasn't always so bad, though. In fact, when she was five, the king adopted her to live in the palace as a companion to his daughter. Although she missed her family and felt trapped in her life as royalty, Malika was well fed and well brought up and had all of the luxuries life could hand out to a child. This makes her subsequent imprisonment all the more shocking, especially as it is at the hands of her adopted family.
I found this book a bit scattered. The author would state in passing something she would then address later, which gave me the feeling of a great deal of jumping around. She also tries a bit too hard to make a connection between life in the palace and life in prison, which I thought was more than a small stretch. Although the author argues that she was never really "free" to do what she wanted while living with the royals, what child ever is free to do what he or she wants? There were few incidents of her being treated cruelly while growing up, and she wanted for nothing, yet she tried to paint herself as a poor sad little child. This tended to make me feel less sorry for her, rather than more.
The part of the book dealing with the family's prison life was horrifying almost beyond belief, yet was dealt with in such a casual tone of voice that I found it hard to get as outraged and sad as I felt I should have been. Something about the tone of the book just didn't strike the right note with me.
Boring Beyond Belief.......2007-07-04
There is nothing "gripping" about this book. The beginning of the book, the tale of life with the King, is interesting. Once the family is arrested and incarcerated, it becomes boring beyond belief - and this is the part of the book that should be riveting! Instead, I found the narration totally self-centered and the "story" absolutely colorless. I quit reading about page 138 (just after the escape) because at that point I could have cared less what happened to this family. The travesty is that these events were real and I should feel outrage and compassion for this family. Instead, I'm annoyed I spent money on this horribly written/edited/translated book!
Stolen Lives.......2007-05-28
I found this story to be an inspirational account of a young girl's struggle from the palace to a jail cell. The orginial controversy of punnishing children for their father's actions developed the story into a thrilling drama. It was a compelling and gripping story, but they way it was written was a little off. Some of the sentances were difficult to read because of the way the words were written. I did not like how the writer kept jumping to the past and present to explain events. This made it confusing to determine what details were current and which already occured.
Disliked.......2007-05-18
I read the book for a book club. I was disappointed. The story was very self-centered. Also,difficult to believe, but a bit boring.
Product Description
Malika Oufkir has spent virtually her whole life as a prisoner. Born in 1953, the eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of Morocco's closest aide, Malika was adopted by the King at the age of five, and was brought up as the companion to his little daughter. Spending most of her childhood and adolescence in the seclusion of the court harem, Malika was one of the most eligible heiresses in the kingdom, surrounded by luxury and extraordinary privilege. Then on August 16th, 1972, her father was arrested and executed after an attempt to assassinate the King. Malika, her five siblings, and her mother were immediately imprisoned in a penal colony. After fifteen years, the last ten of which they spent locked up in solitary cells, the Oufkir children managed to dig a tunnel with their bare hands and make a daring escape... though they were recaptured after only five days of freedom. Malika was finally able to leave Morocco and begin a new life in exile in 1996. Stolen Lives is a heart-rending account of resilience in the face of extreme deprivation, of the courage and even humor with which one family faced their tormented fate. A shocking true story, it is hard to comprehend that it could have happened in our own times.
Customer Reviews:
a sad but true novel..........2006-09-06
i like the realism, the truth about dictatorism, i just wanted to say that i am very sorry, sorry in the name of all the Moroccans, for what happened to this family and these kid.
KIDS SHOULD NEVER BE PART OF A WAR AND POLITICS!!!!!!!
Great novel Malika and thank you for sharing your story with us
you are all women's muse, you are our hero.
i wish you all the happiness in the world and can't wait to read "Freedom"
GOOD STORY...BAD WRITING....BAD EDITING..........2005-01-21
This is a book that on its face held a lot of promise. Any story in which a mother and her children, as well as faithful family retainers, are unjustly imprisoned in squalid conditions for twenty years for an ostensible crime comitted by the familial patriarch would certainly be of interest. Wrong! This is a tepid and disappointing book, poorly written and, most certainly, poorly edited. It is so filled with contraditions and inconsistencies, as to create somewhat of a credibility gap for the reader.
The story revolves around the Oufkir family, who were, at one time, a prominent, highly respected, and well known Moroccan family. Their story is told by Malika Oufkir, who is the eldest daughter of the late General Oufkir, who was executed in August 1972, immediately following an aborted attempt to assassinate King Hassan II of Morocco, for whom he was the Minister of Defense. General's Oufkir's treasonous action was the catalyst for the tragic turn of events that were to engulf his family.
After the aborted coup, the General's immediate family was placed under house arrest and four months later, along with two loyal family retainers who volunteered to share their fate, were whisked away to the first of several desert prisons that were to house them for the next fifteen years.
As Malika tells it, hers was initially almost a fairy tale story. Brought up in luxurious surroundings, she suffered early heartbreak when, at the age of five, she was separated from her family and "adopted" by then King Muhammad V, so as to be a live in playmate for the King's daughter. This adoption is never really explained, and one has no idea what her parents' thoughts were on this issue. Malika lived in the Palace in the lap of luxury for many years. As a teenager, however, she moved back with her family, where, there too, she continued to live a very privileged life, steeped in luxury and money.
After the Oufkirs' circumstances changed, theirs is truly a tragic story. There is little doubt that the conditions in their desert prisons were deplorable and squalid. With inadequate sanitation, insufficient food, no medical care, or educational provisions, the family was truly living a life of privation. Cutoff from the outside world, as they were, they truly were disenfranchised.
Their escape from their last desert prison, an escape that brought their plight to the consciousness of the public, was amazing. But for their escape, there is no doubt in my mind that they would still be languishing in a desert prison today, barely alive, if not already dead. I salute their determination and ingenuity in making a deperate break for freedom.
The problem lies in the telling of the story, which is so poorly told. Many things are left unexplained. No effort is made to ground the events that led to their family's downfall in a historical context. Whatever Malika said seems to have been what went into the final draft of this book, even if she contradicted herself a page or two later, which is the main problem with the book. There are so many inconsistencies with what Malika herself says, that the discerning reader is left to question much of what she represents.
Malika comes across as a somewhat self-absorbed, vapid woman to whom fate dealt a harsh and unusually cruel hand. Her self-absorption is most evident in that she barely acknowledges the sacrifice of the two faithful family retainers, who voluntarily shared their fate, nor does she discuss the impact that this had on them. It is also a little disconcerting that more does not come through about the perceptions the other family members had about this hellish experience. Their insight might have provided a little more balance and interest to the narrative. In the hands of a good writer and and excellent editor, this book might have withstood scrutiny and met expectations.
Sorry, Oprah, your book club selections are usually excellent. This one fails to make the grade.
Average customer rating:
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Warlords of China 700 B.C. to A.D. 1662
Chris Peers
Manufacturer: Sterling Pub Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1854094017 |
Customer Reviews:
There are better choices.......2002-12-13
There's really nothing much in this book that cannot be gained in Chris Peers' titles on Ancient and Imperial Chinese Armies for Osprey, which come with much better colour plates to boot. Better yet, read David A. Graff's "Medieval Chinese Warfare" and "A Military History of China" along with it. Peers, a popular historian, does make a good effort to liven up his prose, unlike Graff. But his reconstruction of events and battles sometimes borders on the sensationalistic. It would have been better if he had tried to be comprehensive, rather than basing his chapters on particularly exciting episodes a few centuries apart.
Amazon.com
Something strange happened to the Enron Corporation in the early 1990s: It went from a company that traded in tangible goods to one that dealt in pure abstractions, with shoddy accounting practices, astonishing compensation packages, and smoke and mirrors to obfuscate this new reality.
Company auditors, Sherron Watkins among them, warned top Enron execs from CEO Kenneth Lay on down that the company's increasing reliance on cooked books and phony reports "will implode in a wave of accounting scandals." As anyone who played the stock market or watched Enron suits do the perp walk on the evening news a couple of years ago will remember, that's exactly what happened. Texas Monthly editor Swarz and Watkins team up to offer this account, rich in anecdote and numbers alike, of what went wrong and who made it so. Though even-handed throughout, they serve up plenty of righteous scorn for the corporate leaders who enriched themselves as the company disintegrated, and for the name-brand politicians who abetted them.
Though Osama bin Laden's pawns barely dented the U.S. economy, observes Alex Berenson in The Number, Lay and his lieutenants brought it to its knees. Swartz's and Watkins's eye-opening account will rekindle new indignation over unpunished crimes and well-rewarded hubris, and it ought to be required reading in business schools henceforth. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.”
Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode…
Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America.
Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums.
Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets
An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Enron......Sad in a way.......2007-03-29
This book is a great account of what happened. When Enron collapsed, I was in my young teens so I really didn't pay much attention to it. However now seeing I'm in college as a business major I think it is an essential book that should be read by all business majors. It teaches what can go wrong when the wrong moves are put in place. Enron I think did everything possible to cripple itself with out seeing it until it was too late. The book takes off as rocket that a company is about to make it big. It takes from the early stages a company to a giant that falls to shambles.
The company employees the wrong people to the wrong positions. Andy Fastow I feel is the biggest crook outside of Skilling. Ken lay I feel was a good man who truly wanted to see the company prevail but with his blindness did not see the fore coming danger. Fastow reported to Skilling and Skilling just signed off on deals with out looking at them. If he would have seen what Fastow was doing with money from the company, chances are these deals would have never made it. However, with the wavering of the ethic code was just wrong. No company should ever break their code of ethics. If they do get out ASAP. Chances are it will lead to bigger breaks and will cause bigger problems and respect will go down the tubes.
This book is worth the cost and it will teach you what Enron did wrong. They should have just stayed in the Nat gas business and slowly dabble in other businesses instead of jumping into businesses without expertise. Go out and buy the book you should be pleased the way it is put together.
A Stockbrokers perspective.......2007-02-26
This book offered an unseen perspective into details about ENRON's dealings and people which should illuminate both old and new views about corporate governance, accounting policies, regulatory climate and unseen involvement by parties which contributed to the collaspe of ENRON.
Exceptional Story of the Enron Tragedy.......2006-11-10
With the recent sentencing of Jeffery Skilling, Mimi Swartz's work takes a complicated story of deciet and betrayal and explains the details in a concise and succint manner. A must read for all business leaders. A great read.
The most important reason for this book is to make the layman aware of just what a travesty the Enron scandal was............2006-10-18
The greatest reason to read this book is to get an appreciation for the scale of the collapse that was Enron. Also, you will get a description of what life was like at Enron on a personal level from an insider's view, as well as their view on what it had to do with the Company's downfall. Yes - this is one person's account, but there's enough factual information to back them up on the important points.
There are many books that are more technically oriented and probably less biased. Unfortunately, for this layman, they don't make very good bedtime reading.
Chaser for "The Smartest Guys in the Room" - kind of Enron lite.......2006-08-09
I recommend reading these 2 books together because TSGITR gets really dense in places, making for draining reading, but since the story is too incredible to put down, Power Failure takes it to a lighter level. I do think Power Failure hones in more on Andy Fastow, as co-writer Sherron Watkins worked directly with him, and the photograph of his little art project is downright chilling (you'll see what I'm referring to). Power Failure still has some great meat to chew on however; the proximity that Sherron Watkins had to the main players, particularly Lay and Fastow, lends itself to the amazing characterizations of these guys on paper. The two books follow a similar chronology and highlights, so it is interesting to compare the slight variations of the same episodes. Even though Sherron Watkins makes the most of her edge, being a primary player in the saga, the tip of my hat goes to TSGITR's writers for their downright nasty investigative reporting.
Product Description
Recorded on 12 1 1/2 hour cassettes. Comes in clamshell case.
Average customer rating:
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Enron end run: whistleblower Sherron Watkins's tell-all doesn't quite add up.(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Washington Monthly
Marianne Lavelle
Manufacturer: Washington Monthly Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B0008DGASK
Release Date: 2005-07-31 |
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This digital document is an article from Washington Monthly, published by Washington Monthly Company on May 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1104 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Enron end run: whistleblower Sherron Watkins's tell-all doesn't quite add up.(Book Review) (book review)
Author: Marianne Lavelle
Publication:
Washington Monthly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2003
Publisher: Washington Monthly Company
Volume: 35
Issue: 5
Page: 50(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Seabirds of the World
Ronald M. Lockley , and
Eric Hosking
Manufacturer: Facts on File
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0871962497 |
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