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

That is the one word I would use to describe this book. The stories she shares about growing up as the "Pilot's daughter" and her servants really show the disparity between classes in Iraq. And her stories about herself in Iraq and the months when the author first reaches America are truly telling of the strength in humanity. There is no excuse for any person to not read this book, it is a great book about strength in adversity and really sheds light on a current issue.

Zainab Salbi --- founder and president of Women for Women International, a non-profit organization created in 1993 to provide female survivors of war and genocide with the tools and resources necessary to move forward with their lives --- has written an engrossing memoir about growing up in Baghdad beneath Saddam Hussein's watchful eye. With her mother's journals as her guide and the help of Los Angeles Times reporter Laurie Becklund, Salbi painstakingly chronicles the humiliating subjugation that she and her family endured (both in Iraq and later in America) and provides a unique inside perspective into a conflict that is sadly still going on to this day. From the time she was a child, Salbi and her family lived in constant fear of Saddam Hussein. In 1969, when she was 11 years old, her father was appointed to be his personal pilot. Because of this prestigious promotion, Saddam's presence in their home became increasingly commonplace, so much so that she and her family were instructed to call him "Amo," the Iraqi word for "Uncle." They were invited to parties at Saddam's palace and, in some of his more "merciful moments," were given lavish gifts, including a house on the palace grounds where they could spend their weekends. "But [Salbi] came to understand that these moments would be followed by months of excruciating, often mystifying punishment." Their movements were monitored. Their freedom to travel and pray was severely limited. Any difference in opinion from what Saddam believed was strictly forbidden. Although they looked to outsiders as though they were living in the lap of luxury, she and her family were trapped in an oppressive, highly controlled lifestyle with no likely means of escape. It took years for her and her family to get out from under Saddam's influence, and even then, they could never completely break away. Salbi's mother and father became estranged after years of enduring Saddam's torture, and eventually divorced. Salbi suffered through a disastrous engagement, an abusive arranged marriage to an Iraqi man thirteen years her senior in America, and years of emotional damage before she finally met a man whom she could trust enough to begin a life with. A few of Salbi's aunts (like many Iraqi women) had been harassed or raped by Saddam, Uday, or any number of the Mukhabarat, and would never fully come to terms with the terror and humiliation they felt at the hands of Saddam and his men. So why didn't they leave? Why didn't they get out in the beginning before things got too harried? Even before the Gulf War began, couldn't they see that Saddam would never stop until it was too late? Hadn't they learned from history's disastrous examples, such as what happened during the regimes of Stalin or Hitler? "That question haunts whole generations of people from around the world whose parents tolerated the rise of dictatorship." Zainab Salbi and her family's horrifying experiences when living in Iraq under Saddam's brutal reign are s

I volunteered for Zainab Salbi's organization back in 1997 and interviewed her for a Washington Times article in 2003. Not knowing these details of her personal story, I was inspired by her strong spirit and work on behalf of oppressed women around the world and found her extraordinary. I had no idea, sitting across from this accomplished, engaging woman, that her life also held such painful secrets. Her book is a gift to its readers and a much-needed voice for Iraqi women.

I picked this book up after reading about it in People magazine. I was enthralled by it. It sneaks up on you, like a psychological novel, especially once you get through the introduction. There are some beautiful lines and scenes i don't think i'll ever forget. The reason i decided to write this review is that the published reviews here suggest this is mostly about Saddam Hussein. It's far more multilayered than that. There's a whole separate story line of journal entries Salbi's mother writes to her as she is dying (and can't talk) that finally reveal secrets she kept from her daughter when she was small because Saddam "could read eyes." It's a story about how people adapt to -- and become responsible for -- their own imprisonment. I also learned about something you never read about -- real Iraqi people, secular Shiites, educated women most American women could easily identify with. I would recommend this to book groups and fiction-readers who loved the Kiterunner or, for different reasons, Secret Life of Bees or Alice Seybold. It raises so many universal questions about facing not only one's tormentor, but oneself, and finding the courage to start over.

After founding Women for Women International, an organziation that empowers women survivors of war to rebuild their lives after conflict, Zainab Salbi found the courage and voice to tell her own story of growing up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's control. Salbi's family was trapped in Hussein's inner circle through her father's role as Saddam's airplane pilot. Through her riveting narrative the reader comes to understand that no one in Iraq was safe from Saddam's wrath and destructive appetites. Salbi's searingly honest writing has helped her conquer a lifelong struggle to claim her own identity. Even years after founding WFWI, on a return trip to Iraq she could feel the old, despised label of being known as the "pilot's daughter" clinging to her. With her work and now her writing, Zainab Salbi has shown the transformative power of shining an illuminating light of truth-telling into the dark corners of secrecy and fear. Weaving her family's story with women's history and Iraq's political history, Salbi has created an emotional, beautifully-written, timely and relevant memoir.