However, these dreams died the day she was forced to marry a man more than twice her age and who already had several other wives. Only three years older than Sultana, Sara dreamed of studying art. When Sultana was entering her teenage years, her sister Sara was forced into marriage. Ali was a spoiled child who often did cruel things to people and animals alike and was never disciplined because he was the only son of their father's first marriage and therefore Father's heir. Other early memories stem from battles she and Ali fought in their attempts to both end up on top. Sultana's first memory stems from an incident in which her mother hit her for copying Ali. Sultana grew up being tortured by her older brother, Ali. Princess is a non-fiction story of the outrage that is forced upon women throughout Saudi Arabia even today, a story that leaves the reader praying for change before it is too late for the next generation of girls growing up in Saudi Arabia. Sultana would suffer some of this oppression herself when she was forced into marriage to a man she barely knew before she was seventeen and when that husband would later tell her he intended to take a second wife because she could no longer give him children. That luxury was belied, however, by the oppression of women that took place all around her as Sultana grew up. Sultana was born the tenth daughter of a prince of Saudi Arabia and grew up in a world of luxury. Sasson is a true story based on information given to the writer by a Saudi Arabian princess. Talks with Marci, her Filipino maid since birth, expose Sultana to the countless wrongs suffered by foreign workers in Saudi Arabia.PRINCESS: A TRUE STORY OF LIFE BEHIND THE VEIL IN SAUDI ARABIA by Jean P. Outside her home she must cover herself completely in black and is expected to be subservient in every way. Sultana marries, and at home she dresses as she pleases and voices her opinions about the inequities she lives, though usually her views are ignored. By age fifteen, Sultana has seen her brother participate in the rape of an eight-year-old, brought her seventeen-year-old sister home after an attempted suicide because of her forced marriage to a sadistic fifty-three-year-old man, and buried her mother. Born into the royal family in 1956, the independent Sultana is the tenth daughter and the youngest of her mother's living children. The result is a vivid depiction of the restrictions of Saudi Arabian society and the raw, corrupt, and unquestionable power of the royal males and religious leaders. Jean does, changing names and places for Sultana's protection. Sultana wants her life to be known and she gives Jean her diaries and notes, entrusting her to write her life story. While living in Saudi Arabia, Jean Sasson befriends a woman named Sultana.

Princess behind the veil