Honor Quite Lost

Norma Khouri's international bestseller, Honor Lost, is apparently a hoax. Khouri's memoir is about an honor killing in Jordan; her good friend, a Muslim woman, is killed for falling in love with a Christian. Khouri, now living in Australia, claimed that her own father would kill her if she ever returned to Amman.

But it all seems to be fiction. Khouri hasn't been in Jordan since she was three years old; she grew up in Chicago. As for the murdered friend, she seems not to have existed at all. The Australian edition (called Forbidden Love) has been withdrawn. The only thing about the story that's true is the problem of honor killings, but Khouri's attempt to exploit the issue is no help to the courageous women in Jordan and elsewhere who are trying to stop such murders.

Most U.S. reviewers and interviewers bought Khouri's story, though USA Today smelled a hoax.