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Malika Oufkir — October 24, 2006

Malika Oufkir is the eldest daughter of General Mohamed Oufkir, whose life of privilege in a Moroccan palace came abruptly to an end in August 1972, when her father was executed for his part in a failed attempt to overthrow King Hassan II. Malika, her mother and her five younger brothers and sisters were arrested and imprisoned in a penal colony in the desert. Malika was only nineteen. The Oufkir family spent the next fifteen years in prison, the last ten in solitary confinement, until, using teaspoons and their bare hands, they managed to dig a tunnel and make their escape. The family were recaptured after just five days and placed under house arrest until 1996, when they were finally allowed to leave Morocco.

In 1999, Malika Oufkir published her autobiography La Prisonnière just months before King Hassan died. Translated into English as Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail, her unflinching account of her family's suffering has become an international bestseller.

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