Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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 shocking but not uncommon. Countless numbers of frightened people are living out similar nightmares in Iraq, the Sudan, and war-torn countries the world over. In 1993, Salbi formed Women for Women International in order to fight against these atrocities and to help women like herself heal from the life-altering wounds that were inflicted upon them. Later, she would pen BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, this evocative and haunting memoir that proves that one courageous woman can rise above her own painful past in order to make a difference in the lives of others.

In the Afterword, Salbi writes, "...In the end there was a point at which I felt that I had to take ownership of my voice, my truth, and my story. I felt I had lived through other women's stories and through their courage in breaking their truths. Perhaps, it was my turn to take that jump and to speak up. So, here I am, taking ownership of my story and telling it."

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

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.

Zainab Salbi is the founder and CEO of Women for Women International, a Washington-based organization that has, since 1993, helped more than 22,000 women in war-ravaged countries start their own businesses and jumpstart their lives.

Zainab Salbi is also the daughter of a 747 captain who was, in the early 1980s, Saddam Hussein's personal pilot.

The connection between these identities --- fearless champion of oppressed women, terrified child in an oppressed nation --- is the story of "Between Two Worlds." It isn't the easiest book to read; "searing" is not too strong to describe the experience. What keeps you going --- indeed, what keeps you reading as fast as you can --- is how brilliantly Salbi and her collaborator, Laurie Berklund, show you what it was like to grow up "privileged" in Iraq: 24/7 scared, silenced, and, inevitably, victimized. And you stay through the horror because you know how it ends: a young woman in her 20s, with her back against the wall, will face down every demon, and, through her tears, come out slugging.

The first thing to understand about Salbi's connection to Saddam is that it was a curse. As a child, she never used Saddam's name; he was "Amo," an uncle. Why the silence? Because everyone he befriended knew Saddam was a psychopath: charming, unpredictable, deadly. He would drop by her parents' Baghdad home at all hours, usually clutching a bottle of Chivas Regal. And then he would talk about killing friends who betrayed him.

Her mother did her best to shelter her daughter: "I learned that men were born with power and women obtained it through sharpness of intellect and good acts. If you were kind, wise and did good works, you could wind up being the princess who had it all." But young Zainab couldn't help noticing how the parents of her school friends suddenly disappeared or were deported. Why did everyone give gold and jewels to Saddam, when he had so many palaces? And why were her parents --- who were favorites of Saddam --- always so tense?

Eventually she figured it out: "When he gave you his most affectionate, lingering smile, he was using that time to look behind your eyes." Her parents, she decided, were "trapped in an abusive relationship." As was she: "I was guarded by the very secret police Amo used to terrorize others."

At 17, she devised her exit strategy: a Ph.D. in languages. By 26, she thought, she'd have one. But early in her college career, she fell in love and insisted on getting married. Her fiancé was sensitive and poetic --- before the engagement. Then he became jealous and possessive and crude. Salbi broke off the engagement. Almost immediately, her mother suggested that she marry a man she'd never met, an Iraqi living in Chicago. Salbi, chastened by her bad judgment, agreed. Maybe her mother was right: You fall in love after you're married.

But as soon as she landed in Chicago, she realized she'd made a mistake. She didn't feel she could turn back, so she soon found herself a prisoner of a foul-tempered misogynist --- in America, she was as unfree as her parents in Iraq. Eventually she fled, got divorced, made enough money to move to Washington. At a party, she met Amjad Atallah, a Palestinian-American with large dreams and a kind heart. Against her will, she fell in love. And, at last, she began to tell her story to someone who desperately wanted to hear it.

If you have not been in an abusive relationship, you can't possibly understand how deeply ingrained the fear is --- even after the threat is over. Until she was in her 20s, in Washington, Zainab Salbi had told no one in her new life that she was "the pilot's daughter." As she had learned in Baghdad, you dealt with unhappy knowledge by erasing it: "I creased my life down the middle like the spine of a book when you bend the pages back very hard. You could read the first half of the book of my life, then read the second half, and not know they were lived by the same person. I wanted it that way. I needed it that way."

A Time Magazine piece about "rape camps" in Bosnia and Croatia triggered tears --- and a sense of mission. There was nothing she could do to help her fellow Iraqis, but she could help these women reclaim their lives. Her program would be like those in which American donors "sponsor" whole families, but her beneficiaries would be rape victims. She spent her twenty-fourth birthday in a refugee camp and, back in Washington, found her voice, leading rallies at which she urged the Clinton administration to act. Two years later, in 1995, the White House gave her an award.

She hadn't seen her mother for five years. Just as well. She couldn't understand why her parents hadn't left Iraq. And she couldn't forgive her mother for pushing her into an arranged marriage with a swine. Then her mother, dying, came to live with her. Under a barrage of questioning, her mother revealed --- well, I really don't want to spoil the surprise, although it is disgusting and terrifying and reveals, as if you needed more proof, just how crazy Saddam was.

You can read this book on two levels: hers and yours. For Zainab Salbi, it is about breaking the silence and revealing your deepest secrets so you don't live your life, as she calls it, "in pieces." As a spectator, you cannot get through a page without being grateful for the life you have; our fears wouldn't even register on Salbi's chart.

These levels come together in Zainab Salbi's cause. It is not my place to pitch you for every cause I care about, but I'll do it unashamedly for this one, because my wife sponsors a woman in a post-conflict zone and says the $27 she commits is the best money she spends each month. It's the kind of cause --- targeted, efficient, life-changing --- that makes you wish you were seriously rich.

Zainab Salbi's book, "Between Two Worlds" is a compelling and extraordinary account that's hard to put down. This honest and well-written book will be fascinating to most Westerners for the world it reveals. But more than that, Salbi's life is an inspiring tale of what it means to rise above one's circumstance, and turn one's pain into action that can change the world. This is a story that should be read by every man and bought for every daughter.

Since 2002 I have been involved with Women for Women International(WWI )as the Soroptimist International Liaison for the project we collaboratively do with WWI. I have had the privilege of going to the "field" in Bosnia and seeing the program Ms. Salbi put into place 13 years ago and more importantly met hundreds of women whose lives have been changed and made hopeful through the professional, compassionate and important work that the staff of WWI do. I could hardly wait to read the book and was riveted to every word and every message of human challenge, of a society made victims and the power of courage, compassion and tenacity that was shown through Zainab's personal story. On this earth there are heros and heroines and Zainab ranks as one that I feel so pleased to help undergird and support every effort she takes on. [...] Read about our Soroptimist Project as well- Project Independence: Women Survivors of War. Ordinary citizens can make a difference -one woman at a time.

Dawn Marie Lemonds, Quadrennial Project Liaison Soroptimist International

Prior to being exposed to this work, my knowledge of Iraqi or International affairs were slim to none. I know this is horrible to admit, but it was true. This memoir opened my eyes to war crimes against women. We have all read about atrocities against women in our history books, but to my amazement, this is still happening today. This book not only motivates me personally to become proficient in current events, but it also raises many moral questions. One of which is, am I being an active member of the world in which I live?

TIP: If you find the dialogue hard to follow, I highly recommend the audio book read by Josephine Bailey. It is FABULOUS!

This is an incredible story that I could not put down. Zainab's story is inspiring, educational but I also found the book to be entertaining. Her story puts a very human side of a drama that we have seen authored in countless documentaries and news stories, yet with a very different perspective and fascinated me. To read of her middle class upbringing in Baghdad to becoming essentially a refugee in the United States is a compelling and inspiring tale. The book was devoid of any political tones for the most part. She sensibly gave her opinion on the overthrow of Saddam Huessein and the war with Iraq and her opinion on the future of Iraqi citizens without injecting any politics in to it, just her own heart and matter-of-fact opinions. I can't imagine what it must be like in her shoes - seeing the death and destruction of her country on the news daily but still feeling the relief over Saddam Huessein being removed as President, and inversely, shock of seeing this man who was for better or worse, a huge part of her childhood and family social life being fished out of a foxhole on international television. I recommend this book to anyone, she is a truly amazing woman and this is a great story.

This is the most moving autobiography that I have read in a long time. It is brave, haunting, inspiring, and illuminating. It gave me an intimate look at a life I could have never have imagined. More than any textbook or news cast, it helped me to understand what life is like for people in a cruel dictatorship. Salbi has transformed the evil she endured and created an amazing organization that helps women around the world. I feel privileged to know where that strength, dedication and passion comes from. Thanks to Salbi for sharing her story and for all of the work that she does! She is a beacon of hope!