Product Description

When Souad was seventeen she fell in love. In her village, as in so many others, sex before marriage was considered a grave dishonour to one's family and was punishable by death. This was her crime. Her brother-in-law was given the task of arranging her punishment. One morning while Souad was washing the family's clothes, he crept up on her, poured petrol over her and set her alight. In the eyes of their community he was a hero. An execution for a 'crime of honour' was a respectable duty unlikely to bring about condemnation from others. It certainly would not have provoked calls for his prosecution. More than five thousand cases of such honour killings are reported around the world each year and many more take place that we hear nothing about Miraculously, Souad survived rescued by the women of her village, who put out the flames and took her to a local hospital. Horrifically burned, and abandoned by her family and community, it was only the intervention of a European aid worker that enabled Souad to receive the care and sanctuary she so desperately needed and to start her life again. She has now decided to tell her story and uncover the barbarity of honour killings, a practice which continues to this day Burned Alive is a shocking testimony, a true story of almost unbelievable cruelty. It speaks of amazing courage and fortitude and of one woman's determination to survive. It is also a call to break the taboo of silence that surrounds this most brutal of practices and which ignores the plight of so many other women who are also victims of traditional violence

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16900 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 359 pages

From the Back Cover
When Souad was seventeen she fell in love. In her village, as in so many others, sex before marriage was considered a grave dishonour to one’s family – a dishonour punishable by death. This was her crime, and her brother-in-law was given the task of arranging her punishment. One morning he crept up on her, poured petrol over her and set her alight. In the eyes of their community he was a hero.

Miraculously, Souad survived, rescued by the women of her village, although she suffered horrific burns. It was only the intervention of a European aid worker that enabled her to receive the care and sanctuary she so desperately needed. She has now decided to tell her story and uncover the barbarity of honour killings, a practice which continues to this day.

Burned Alive is a shocking testimony, a true story of almost unbelievable cruelty that speaks of amazing courage and of one woman’s determination to survive. It is also a call to break the taboo of silence that surrounds this most brutal of practices that ignores the plight of so many other women who are also victims of traditional violence.

‘The terrifying memoir of a young Palestinian woman … Her ordeal reveals the scandalous treatment of women that is the real human rights abuse in the West Bank’ Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
Now lives in Europe. She is married with three children

Customer Reviews

Brilliant!
I couldn't put this book down! Literally! (I read it in one sitting.)

It is so easy for us to take our lives for granted, but books like this are a real eye-opener to the plight of abused women in other parts of the world. I only wish there were more books like this, from women brave enough to come forward and tell their stories.

A Must buy - Fantastic reading, worth every penny plus more
I'm not much of a reader unless it's about something I'm interested in and this book fascinated me because it's a true story which I love to read.... I couldn't put this book down, it's one of those compelling true stories that you've got to find out what happens next, why and how this person could endure the torture she went through....

Burned Alive is about a Muslim girl and her life, very sad, but makes you realise that how they live, what their life is like a little bit about their customs and the sadness of their existence of a female in their world.... An attempted honour killing that goes wrong, she survives being burned alive and talks freely about her life.... I know this is a modern world that we live in but I feel that some westerners are blinded by other cultures as we don't understand them or why they believe what they belive, it's all down to up bringing and teaching, this book defintely opens up your eyes to another world, one you wouldn't think still exists but it still happens all over the world.... How free we are from the ignorance of what goes on, the slavery that's still out there or other people, that think their lives are normal when in fact it's only normal in their world not ours.... Souad definitely thought that what she was told was true, it wasn't until she escaped that, that she then found out what our lives are like and that children can play freely, go to school even if they're females, wear shoes, simple things we take for granted....

As we know no different like Souad and their culture knows no different to whats outside their own village or world....
It's what inbreeded into you and what you see and teach your children, what they learn from their parents and culture, and the viscious circle carries on.... This book shows you all this....

I know there's modern families out there that are changing things for the next generation, just like Souad is trying to do by writing this book and notifying us what's it's like in her culture, how woman are treated, but it'll take time for a lot of cultures before it changes, if ever it does....

Souad explains that her culture tells her what the outside world is like when infact they're brain washed into believing what their family and village tells them.... She finds out in her new life that it's not so and that woman are free to where shoes, walk and talk to men without being branded a whore, or being beaten for not doing something correctly or the way it should be done.... Our ignorance of other cultures and their of ours, their naivity of things outside of their own existence.... It's a mans world in some places and woman are at the bottom of the list, they're door mats and worth nothing, a burden to their families, slaves to their parents or husbands.... It's unimaginable to me how this can still go on and the braveness and courage of this one individual to speak out about a tramatic event in her life, when at times she wanted to die, she wanted to give up.... About her savour Jacqueline and the SURGIR organisation that saved her, about her reunion with her son, an emotional story that will truly touch your heart strings and make you realise how lucky we are not to live that way.... Everyone has their own beliefs but the cruelty of what Souad endures and others alike that are left behind and will continue to endure this type of treatment....

Worth every penny....

burned alive
i read this book in two evenings i couldnt put it down. what a fantastic woman souad is she has come from the most appalling life and has survived horrors that no one should ever witness or live through.