A famous best-selling novel called “Forbidden love” written by the author of Arabic origin about a tragedy that happened in Jordan has quickly become incredibly popular. The main issue brought up in the novel by Norma Khouri is the issue of honor killings that are claimed to be still widely popular in Muslim families of Jordan. The publishers and the agent of the author were impressed by this subject, the book was predicted to be extremely popular as it was suitable for a very broad audience and touched a subject that bothers many people all over the world these days. The forecast turned out to be correct and “Forbidden Love” gained its popularity within the first month of being released. The readers were captivated by the story and the tragic circumstances that forced Norma to leave her motherland, as her life was in danger (“Forbidden Lies”, 2012).
After the book had become popular, multiple mistakes in it started to be reported by people, who came from Jordan and knew a lot about the culture there and the way of living of modern Muslim families in that country. The book started to be suspected in being a fake. After a research and an investigation the novel was proved to be fabricated and many details from it turned out to be false. The author herself has spent major part of her life in the United States. It is noted in The Guardian that no record of Norma Khouri has ever been found in Amman, where the writer claims to have spent her childhood and school years (Fickling, 2004).The problem raised in the book is a real problem – honor killings are practiced in Muslim families and many women became victims of this cruel tradition, yet Dalia, the character of Khouri’s novel, has never been one of those poor women (Fickling, 2004).
The author of the book is accused in presenting a fictional story as a true one, which she witnessed some time ago. Besides, the investigation of the story’s validity has revealed the details of Khouri’s life, which she has been persistently hiding; the film is filled with interviews with all kinds of authorities speaking about various errors in the novel and gaps in Khouri’s biography. I agree with the accusations, to my mind, the investigation makes sense, because the novel touches a very serious theme for the world’s society and for Islamic culture. The author of “Forbidden Love” attracts public attention to this issue, but her picture of Islamic culture is distorted and the actual traditions are misrepresented, the novel creates a false idea of Muslim culture in the minds of readers all over the world. This is dangerous, knowing the amount of attention directed to the life in Arabic countries, rights of Arab women, and multiple negative stereotypes living in the society.
There are opinions, saying that main idea of the book was to raise the subject of cruelty and the tradition of honor killings in Jordan, and the fact that the author has made some mistakes in her novel is irrelevant to the actual goal of the story. I would argue with that. To my mind, the book is offensive to the majority of Islamic families. Besides, knowing that more than two hundred and fifty thousand copies of “Forbidden Love” were sold worldwide, we can only imagine the amount of negative propaganda against Islamic culture this novel has caused. The goal of the film “Forbidden Lies” was to spread the information about the false facts presented in the book and try to lighten the damage the book might have done.
Reference List
3aiiishah. (2012). Forbidden Lies (Full). Web.
Fickling, D. (2004). Bestseller on Honor Killing ‘Is a Fake’. Web.