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.)