Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam - Softcover

Salbi, Zainab; Becklund, Laurie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1592402445 ISBN 13: 9781592402441

Publisher: Avery, 2006

Synopsis

Zainab Salbi was eleven years old when her father was chosen to be Saddam Hussein's personal pilot and her family's life was grafted onto his. Her mother, the beautiful Alia, taught her daughter the skills she needed to survive. A plastic smile. Saying yes. Burying in boxes in her mind the horrors she glimpsed around her. "Learn to erase your memories," she instructed. "He can read eyes."

In this richly visual memoir, Salbi describes tyranny as she saw it - through the eyes of a privileged child, a rebellious teenager, a violated wife, and ultimately a public figure fighting to overcome the skill that once kept her alive: silence.

Between Two Worlds is a riveting quest for truth that deepens our understanding of the universal themes of power, fear, sexual subjugation, and the question one generation asks the one before it: How could you have let this happen to us?

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Between Two Worlds:

"...a torrent of vividly recalled memories [that] reads with the sort of artless verve that can come only from one who's been unshackled from a lifetime of repression."
—Vogue

"A remarkable, astonishing memoir...more can be learned about Iraq from this book than from all the newscasts."
—Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

"A country unravels and a loving family dissolves in Zainab Salbi's riveting, beautifully observed memoir...This is the exquisite if often painful story of Salbi's own emergence from victim to global activist on behalf of women survivors of violence and war everywhere. I guarantee you won't be able to put it down."
—Ellen Chesler, author of Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America

"A personal, intimate look at the soul-crushing impact of Hussein’s Iraq. . . . Salbi deploys a straightforward, easy prose that is powerful in its simplicity. . . . Now, with her chilling memoir, the lies end."
—The Washington Post

"Salbi has direct personal knowledge of Hussein that is both insightful and disturbing."
—Ms. magazine

"Engrossing. . . . a unique insider perspective . . . an evocative and haunting memoir that proves that one courageous woman can rise above her own painful past in order to make a difference in the lives of others."
—Bookreporter.com

"A remarkable tale of emotional and mental resilience."
—Bookpage

". . . a steadfast visionary spirit prevails, rendered with remarkable literary skill and complex personalities."
—Bust

About the Author:

Zainab Salbi is the founder and president of Women for Women International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing women of war and civil unrest with the resources to become self-sufficient citizens and promote peace. She holds degrees from George Mason University and the London School of Economics, and she has publicized her work widely in the media, including six appearances on Oprah.

Laurie Becklund is a Los Angeles journalist and author. A former Los Angeles Times reporter, she wrote the first story about Salbi in 1991, when Zainab was a young woman stranded in America after a failed marriage during the Gulf War.

About this edition

• Publisher: Avery
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1592402445
• ISBN 13: 9781592402441
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304