Sep 23, 2004 01:40 PM
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(Updated Sep 23, 2004 01:43 PM)
Princess is a book based upon the real life and experiences of a royal Saudi princess. The book reflects the life of women in Saudi Arabia in general. Chapter after chapter of this book throw up gruesome incidents before the eyes of the reader.
The protagonist of this book is Sultana , a royal Saudi princess. She is mischevious by nature and a rebel at heart. She describes herself as the most troublesome child of her parents.From the very first chapter she describes the prejudices faced by her and her sisters from her father who is more favourable to Ali , their elder brother.
The condition of women and the injustices faced by them make the readers sick to their gut and make them wonder how heartless men can be towards women in Saudi Arabia. I spell out a few instances of cruelty which disturbed me the most.
There is the story of a village girl who is raped by her brother's friends .She is all of 15 years old .She gets pregnant and the boys lie that she had herself offered herself to them.After the child is delivered the girl is stoned to death.The sequence of stoning is described in a most gruesome manner.The victim's mouth is stuffed with cloth so that she cannot scream and people stone her for hours til she is declared dead.
There is the story of Sameera who is sentenced to punishment in a woman's room. This involves solitary confinement of the woman in a windowless room and no one talks to her. Only food is given to her under the door and a small opening exists in the ground for disposal of body wastes. Sameera's crime is that she fell in love with a foreigner. The men of Saudi Arabia do not mind having foreign prostitutes , but a woman there cannot have a relationship with a foreigner.
Besides this there are events of female circumcision and honour killings i.e. killing of the errant female for preserving the honour of the family.The hypocrisy of the Saudi society is also well brought out.Sulatana's brother Ali and his friend Hadi who otherwise despise women in the open calling them corrupters of faith rape an8 year old girl of a poor woman in Egypt after paying money to the woman.
Besides this the other evils of the Saudi society such as polygamy , old men marrying child brides and treating them with cruelty and abusing them sexually.The inhuman treatment meted out to foreign workers is also shown in this book.
I recommend you to read this book because it shows how a society is perverted in the name of religious constraints.Religion which is meant for upliftment of the individual becomes the cause for moral degradation and downfall.
The book is well written by Jean Sasson.The sequences of the wedding of Sara , Sultana's beautiful elder sister to an old man four times her age and the death of Sultana's mother are very well written.
The only demerit of this book is that you might become depressed on seeing the inhuman treatment of women in the Saudi society.I wanted to keep this book away after reading a few chapters because the description of cruelty to women were unbearable to me.
As you read this book I am sure you shall feel the pain and desperation of the Saudi women who have been denied freedom and subjected to unspeakable cruelties.
Please read the review and comment on it. I shall be grateful.
