Princess: A True Story of Life behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

by Jean Sasson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780688116750
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/01/1992
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Jean Sasson was born in the small town of Louisville, Alabama. As a child, she was fascinated by stories of countries and cultures different from her own. This curiosity continued into her adult years, ultimately propelling her to find work in a foreign country. In 1978, she took a job as an administrator coordinator of the King

What People are Saying About This

Betty Mahmoody

Heart-wrenching…the issues addressed by this admirably courageous woman stay with the reader long after the story is finished.
—(Betty Mahmoody, author of Not Without My Daughter)

Editorial Reviews

In this consistently gripping work, the American-born Sasson (The Rape of Kuwait) recounts the life story of a Saudi princess she met while living in Saudi Arabia. The pseudonymous Sultana is a niece of King Faisal. Her father had four wives and a palace for each of them. Her older sister was circumcised before a "modern" doctor intervened on behalf of Sultana and her eight other sisters; their father treated all 10 as breeding animals, useless until old enough to be married off and to produce sons for their husbands. One sister, wed to a 62-year-old sexual sadist, attempted suicide. Sultana, the family's rebel, had the luck to marry a man who valued her spirit and intelligence. Yet when, after bearing five children, she could bear no more, he prepared to take another wife; Sultana fought this, as she had fought every other injustice and indignity her culture inflicted on her. In Sasson's telling, Sultana's story is a fast-paced, enthralling drama, rich in detail about the daily lives of the Saudi royals and packed with vivid personal sketches of the ruling clan and sharp opinions about the sexual mores, politics, religion and culture of this still-feudal nation. An appalling glimpse of the conditions endured by even such privileged women as the attractive, well-born Sultana. Photos not seen by PW . First serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild alternate; author tour. ( Sept. )

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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

Library Journal

Sasson was asked by a friend, a member of the Saudi royal family, to write this candid depiction of her life. Princess Sultana (a pseudonym, although how her identity can be kept secret when so many specific details of her life are spelled out is a mystery) is a woman who since birth has been surrounded by monumental wealth yet has lived under barbaric socioreligious constraints. Many have heard or read of the veils worn by Saudi women, their arranged marriages, and even their executions for moral missteps--such as being raped by family members. Sasson's first-person narrative puts the whole nightmarish experience into perspective. Sultana has divulged how her existence as a female was disdained from earliest childhood by her taunting brother and contemptuous father. She spells out the horror stories of her sister's forced marriage as the fourth wife of an abusive older man, of a friend's lifetime confinement in a dark attic room for falling in love with a westerner while studying in London, of her sister's maiming circumcision, and of countless other acts supposedly justified by religious tradition but actually intended to maintain male dominion over Saudi women. Throughout, the princess's feisty spirit is the book's saving feature. Her conniving and arrogant refusal to conform to this system are marvelous yet heart-breaking to behold. Human rights, not solely women's rights, are at issue here.

Denise Perry Donavin