Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Honor Lost : Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan

Honor Lost : Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan
reviewed on
Helpful Score: 3


Note: this story was exposed as a hoax a few years ago. Apparently Norma Khouri only visited Jordan long ago as a child, and she made up almost this entire tale (and its characters; there was no real Dalia) as a scam to make money.

When contacted about the story by an American reporter who wanted to do a piece on honor killings, Khouri became evasive, and the reporter began to uncover the extent of the scam. Faced with discovery, Khouri cut off contact with the reporter and moved to a different state.

This is not to say that honor killings don't happen. But this book, which was presentd as a true story of that horrible practice, is basically just a lot of melodrama and lies.

In the end, it seems that Khouri simply wanted to make money by shocking readers in the West who wouldn't be familiar enough with modern Jordanian culture to smell a rat.