Burned Alive

Abstract

Burned Alive is the true story of Souad, a young Palestinian woman who survived an attempted honor killing carried out by her brother-in-law. This autobiography, documented by Marie-Thérèse Cuny and translated from the French by Judith S. Armbruster, is narrated in such a way that the readers can develop a familiarity with the complicated dimension of gender roles, the prevalence of asymmetrical standards of male and female morality in misogynistic societies, and their impact on women. The plot develops in a way designed to inform the reader that honor killing, although outwardly practiced as a customary punishment for an illicit sexual relationship, is, in reality, a brutal form of female suppression. The book, divided into five parts, covers two different stages of Souad’s life. Now forty-five, the first phase of her life took place in a small West Bank village where, at the age of eighteen, she experienced the atrocity of an attempted honor killing because she had had premarital sexual relationships with a man. Through an aid worker named Jacqueline, Souad miraculously survived and was moved to Europe, where she began the second phase of her life. She now lives with a loving husband and three children, following her tryst with death, twenty-four operations, and innumerable excruciatingly painful recovery procedures ...