In 2001 Norma Khoury's book Forbidden Love was published. Its the profoundly shocking true story of Dalia, her Muslim best friend in Amman, Jordan, who was murdered by her father for falling in love with a Christian man. Norma fled Jordan and spent two years living in Greece in fear for her life. During this time she learnt English and wrote Dalia's story so that the world would know the truth.
The only problem was that it was all a whopping big fat lie.
I saw the doco about Norma Khoury, Forbidden Lie$ last night. Norma was by turns breathtaking, shameless and hilarious. Watching Norma reveal her many selves in front of the camera reminded me of peeling an onion, one layer simply stripped back to reveal another which stripped back again. See this movie if you can, and learn how a married mother of two on the run from the FBI for multiple counts of fraud managed to flee the States with a letter of recommendation from Dick Cheney's daughter, settle in Australia and pass herself off as a virgin refugee fearing for her life but bravely fighting for an extremely important cause. Its mesmerising.
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Sounds interesting. I read the book and was quite moved - and then found out about the hoax. It's a shame, because it really undermines the message of 'honour killings', which really happen. It raises interesting points about literary authenticity as well - would we have been as angry if she had just called it fiction? Would it have moved us as much?
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