|
|
Nonfiction Book Reviews
Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia
by Carmen bin Laden
Warner Books, June, 2005
Trade paperback, 214 pages
ISBN: 0446694886
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
|
Amazon.co.uk
Now out in trade paperback, Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen Bin
Ladin (Warner Books), gives a fascinating look at the hidden life of women in Saudi Arabia.
As a young woman in her native Switzerland, Carmen lived a sheltered life. Her father was
Swiss and her mother was part of an aristocratic Iranian family who fled to Switzerland.
In 1973, a very young Carmen married Yeslam bin Ladin, a wealthy Saudi Arabian who
seemed to embrace Western ways. They went to college in California and traveled in
Europe. But when Yeslam took his bride home to Saudi Arabia, Carmen got the shock of her
life. She couldn't be seen outside the house without a male guardian, or without being
covered from head to toe in stifling black wool. She wasn't present at her own marriage
ceremony (other men weren't allowed to see her face). And her husband began to change
in terrifying ways.
In this truly courageous book, Carmen bin Ladin takes readers on a moving journey into
the very heart of Saudi Arabia and its culture. She had the finest couture gowns from
Paris and boxes of fine jewelry, but she wasn't even allowed to walk across the street
to visit a neighbor. She details the unraveling of her marriage and her desperation
to escape Saudi Arabia for her daughters' sake. She also tells what it was like to
be the sister-in-law of Osama bin Laden, and gives some interesting insights into his
personality. The book reads quickly, like an issue of People magazine, but this compelling
story will stay with you for a long time.
--Claire E. White
Return to Book Reviews Index
**
To visit the archives of nonfiction books reviewed in The
IWJ, please
click here.
| |
|
