I was living a fairy tale in reverse. I had been brought up as a princess and now I had turned into Cinderella.
Malika Oufkir (b. 1954) grew up in a gilded cage: the royal palace of the Moroccan King, Hassan II. The pampered playmate of the young princess, she lived with the royal family and the King’s many concubines, an honor arranged by her father, General Mohamed Oufkir, his right-hand man. But it was an honor that chafed. Malika longed for a normal life at home with her five siblings, beautiful mother, and doting father—a man whose fearsome reputation she could not fathom. When her wish was finally granted in high school, what looked to be the start of a normal life came to an abrupt end with his death, presumably an execution for his role in the 1972 coup attempt. For sixteen years, the family and two servants were locked away in a series of squalid prisons. Madame Oufkir was thirty-four years old; her youngest child was just three.
Deprived of food, sunshine, visitors, hygiene products, and healthcare, they were on the brink of death when four of them made a miraculous escape involving an impossible tunnel and good fortune—only to find that most of their friends had forgotten or deserted them out of fear. The ensuing media attention, however, softened their plight to four more years of house arrest before they were ultimately freed. That they all survived was incredible. That they might all survive intact, however, was impossible.
This is a story about resilience, the strength of the human spirit, and the power of familial love. To Malika’s thumbnail sketch of that story in English, watch this ten-minute author interview [beginning at the 1 minute mark], recorded in 2006 on the occasion of her second book, Freedom: The Story of My Second Life.