Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
Jean Sasson, 1992
Midpoint Trade Books
296 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780967673745
Summary
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 vote, 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 religious 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 of anonymity. She 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 appalling 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 "woman's room," a padded, windowless cell where women are confined with neither light nor conversation until death claims them. Servants are forced into sexual servitude and severely beaten if they attempt escape.
By speaking out, Sultana risks bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and the heads of her children. In the barren, hopeless wasteland that is the life of Saudi women today, free speech is punishable by death. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Where—Louisville, Alabama, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Atlanta, Georgia
Jean P. Sasson is an American writer who writes mainly about women in the Middle East.
In 1978 she traveled to Saudi Arabia to work in the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh as an administrative coordinator in Medical Affairs. She worked at the hospital for 4 years, then married, living in Saudi Arabia until 1990. She is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her first book, The Rape of Kuwait about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, was published in 1991. It was based on interviews she conducted with Kuwaitis who had fled to Cairo, Saudi Arabia, London and Washington, D.C. The book was published before the war broke out. Advertisements in the major newspapers and on network television featured the book with the accompanying tag line: "Read it and you'll know why we're there." The Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington paid to send 200,000 copies of it to American troops in the Persian Gulf.
Sasson's second book Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia chronicles the life of Sultana, a purported Saudi princess. It claims to be a true story, detailing gender inequalities experienced by Saudi Arabian women. The identity of Sultana (a pseudonym) is concealed to assure her safety. The book remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 13 weeks. In 1995, a lawsuit was brought against the author of the book alleging plagiarism. The lawsuit was later dismissed. (From Wikipedia.)
Book 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.
Publishers 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 , 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 and Paryeen Shaukat Ali's Status of Women in the Muslim World (1975) are good. —Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville
Library Journal
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 - Booklist
Sasson (The Rape of Kuwait, 1991) brings us "Sultana," a pseudonymous member of the Saudi royal family whose memoir documents the suffocating sexism that pervades Saudi life.... 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...").... But when Sultana stops talking about herself and takes time to observe, we get amazing details: of Saudi wealth... and cultural brutality.... Worth paging past the trivial, then, to absorb a chilling and enraging portrait of women's absolute powerlessness in Saudi society.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Princess:
1. How would you describe Princess Saltana's personality? Does it change as she matures into womanhood and marriage? Would you have her courage?
2. Care to comment on this statement from Sultana?—"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." Aside from being "trapped," what does the simile suggest?
3. Why is misogyny so pervasive throughtout the Muslim world? What do men fear...or dislike about women?
4. Saltana insists that the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia is a misinterpretation of the Q'uran rather than a true and accurate reading. How does Saltana portray the Islamic faith? After reading the translated passages at the back of the book, what do you think?
5. Other than the obvious wearing of the veil, talk about the numerous ways are women treated as non-entities in Saudi Arabia.
6. Which episodes in this book do you find you most horrifying—Sara's arranged marriage ... Nadia's drowning ... Madeline's nightly rape...others?
7. A number of women in the book display courage in the face of oppression and abject powerlessness. Talk about some of those women. How do you account for their strength and perseverance? How would you fare under such oppressive conditions?
8. Despite the lack of respect they show her, Sultana says she maintains respect for the men in her life. Would you be so generous in spirit?
9. If you were a woman in Saudi Arabia, what would you find most difficult: living in fear...the boredom of purdah...the sense of degradation...the injustice of it all...or what?
10. What can we in the Western world do to help women of Saudi Arabia? Should we do anything? Consider this: if citizens of a sovereign country believe that their treatment of women adheres to the dictates of their religious faith, is it right for the Western world to impose its particular moral values on them?
11. Having read Sasson's book, how do you feel about sending billions of petrol dollars from the US to Saudi Arabia—thus upholding a way of life we find abhorrent?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)