La Prisonniere by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi

La Prisonniere

Twenty Years in a Desert Gaol

by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi

Translated by Ros Schwartz

Doubleday, 2000, ISBN 0385601638, black and white photographic plates, paperback

Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, a little crumpling and staining to top of first dozen pages, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“Malika Oufkir has spent virtually her whole life as a prisoner.  Born into a proud Berber family in 1953, the eldest daughter of the King of Morocco’s closest aide, Malika was adopted by the king to be a companion to his little daughter.  At the royal court of Rabat she grew up locked away in a golden cage, among the royal wives and concubines.
But when Malika was nineteen, in 1972, her father was arrested after an attempt to assassinate the king.  General Oufkir was swiftly and summarily executed.  Malika, her beautiful mother and her five younger brothers and sisters – the youngest of whom was barely three years old – were seized and thrown into an isolated desert gaol.  Innocent of any crime other than that of being Oufkir’s family, they were kept locked away without any contact with the outside world, in increasingly barbaric and inhumane conditions, fighting a daily battle against malnutrition, disease, loneliness and despair.”