STOLEN LIVES: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail

Brychta's suave and subtle Arabic lilt perfectly capture this first-person narration of a Moroccan family's harsh exile as punishment for the transgressions of its patriarch. After enjoying a fairy tale upbringing as the adopted daughter of King Muhammad V in his palace, Oufkir, along with her mother and siblings, was imprisoned in a succession of desert jails after her father engineered a failed coup against the king's heir, King Hassan II, in 1972. The Oufkirs were forced to endure 20 years of solitude, infested prison cells and the ever-worsening depravity of their captors. Oufkir worked with Fitoussi to produce a crisp memoir that bristles with imagery, perhaps owing to Oufkir's continual storytelling in jail to try to keep her family's misery temporarily at bay. The production is gracefully laced with haunting Middle Eastern airs, which, in conjunction with Brychta's voice, render a truly otherworldly feel. A central tension here is in the currency of a story that seems possible only in an age long gone. A chronicle of endurance and the aftereffects of a grim ordeal, this engaging recording inspires as just as much indignation as it does admiration. Based on the Talk Miramax hardcover (Forecasts, Jan. 29). (July)