Disfigured: A Saudi Woman's Story of Triumph Over Violence

For over six years, Rania al-Baz was the smiling face of a family program on Saudi television. She was a young, beautiful Saudi TV news anchor--the first woman to have such a job--when her abusive husband beat her into a coma and left her for dead. She later underwent thirteen operations to reconstruct her face. When she agreed to make horrifying pictures of her ravaged face public, her story sparked general criticism of Saudi culture. A month later, the first Saudi research into domestic violence began at King Saud University in Riyadh. But Rania's memoir is not simply the story of the violence she suffered; nor is it a tale of revenge. She denounces neither Islam nor the traditions of her country, nor even her former husband--only his violence. It is this generosity of spirit that carries her story--about her Saudi Arabian girlhood and adolescence, her disastrous first marriage, her public life as a TV journalist, her life as a mother, and her evolution into an activist on behalf of women.