Gaddafi's Harem

ISBN: 0802122825

Author: Cojean, Annick

Condition: New

Soraya was just fifteen, a schoolgirl in the coastal town of Sirte, when she was given the honor of presenting a bouquet of flowers to Colonel Gaddafi, the Guide, on a visit he was making to her school the following week. This one meeting-a presentation of flowers, a pat on the head from Gaddafi-changed Sorayas life forever. Soon afterwards, she was summoned to Bab al-Azizia, Gaddafis palatial compound near Tripoli, where she joined a number of young women who were violently abused, raped and degraded by Gaddafi. Heartwrenchingly tragic but ultimately redemptive, Sorayas story is the first one of many that are just now beginning to be heard. But sex and rape remain the highest taboo in Libya, and women like Soraya (whose identity is protected by a pseudonym here) risk being disowned or even killed by their dishonored family members.In Gaddafis Harem, an instant bestseller on publication in France, where it has already sold more than 100,000 copies in hardcover, Le Monde special correspondent Annick Cojean gives a voice to Sorayas story, and supplements her investigation into Gaddafis abuses of power through interviews with people who knew Soraya, as well as with other women who were abused by Gaddafi, and those who were involved with his regime, including a driver who ferried women to the compound, and Gaddafis former Chief of Security. Gaddafis Harem is an astonishing portrait of the essence of dictatorship: how power gone unchecked can wreak havoc on the most intensely personal level, as well as a document of great significance to the new Libya.