Although not apparent from its title, Stolen Lives is Malika Oufkir's autobiography, and what a story she has to tell. Born into Morocco's upper crust, she lived the life of luxury the first 19 years of her life. She then lived her next 19 years as an innocent person imprisoned under conditions that were at times so horrific they challenge comprehension by the imagination.

Born in 1953, Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of Moroccan General Muhammad Oufkir. When she was five, Morocco's King exercised his royal prerogative and adopted her as his daughter. She then lived in luxury and privilege as a royal princess until she was 16, when the King acceded to her wish to return to her birth family. She matured to have the looks and figure of a movie star and she aspired to be an actress. As the head of the country's military and security forces, as well as the King's closest aide, Malika's father was the second most powerful man in Morocco. Disillusioned with aspects of the King's rule, in August 1972 her father orchestrated a failed coup attempt to dispose the King. After he was executed along with his confederates, Malika, her mother and three sisters, her two brothers, the youngest of whom was three, and two female attendants were arrested and imprisoned. Their crime: they were the immediate family members of General Oufkir, considered by many Moroccans a national hero. Confined in a variety of prisons and detention facilities, they were not released for almost nineteen years.

Malika relates how her family was eventually reduced to the point that they eagerly ate mouse droppings to supplement their meager food rations. To attract the King's attention to their plight, at one time they went on a hunger strike, and at another time they sent him a petition signed in their own blood.... it is a shocking recounting of what power, lack of it or greed for it, can do.