Norma Khouri: Hoax or love?

Sydney, July 26 (Reuters): A best-selling Australian book about the honour killing of a Jordanian woman was withdrawn from sale today after doubts were raised about its authenticity.

Norma Khouri’s Forbidden Love was pulled from bookshelves after a newspaper reported her supposedly true-life story of a friendship with a Muslim woman killed by her father for falling in love with a Christian man from the West was a fake.

Australian immigration officials are now also investigating Khouri, who says she grew up in Jordan and opened a hair dressing salon there with her friend Dalia, the subject of the book, when they were in their 20s.

But the Sydney Morning Herald has said it has evidence Khouri only lived in Jordan until she was three and lived in the US from 1973 until 2000. Her case will join a long list of Australian literary frauds if the newspaper’s claims are true.

Random House Australia said in a statement it had asked Khouri for evidence that the book is a true account of her life.

“This action has been taken because the company is very concerned about allegations raised on the weekend by the Sydney Morning Herald which cast doubt on Khouri’s true identity and her story as told in Forbidden Love,” it said.

The Herald said on Saturday it had learned during an 18-month investigation into Khouri’s background that the author had lived in Chicago since she was three. It said it had uncovered numerous other contradictions in her story.

Khouri has said in many interviews that she fled Jordan in fear for her life because of her account of how her friend Dalia was stabbed 12 times by her enraged father after he discovered Dalia’s love affair with a Christian soldier.

She has said she fled to Athens, where she supposedly wrote the book in Internet cafes, and was then helped to reach Australia by her publishers.

The Herald reported on Saturday that Khouri is married with two children and living at a secret location in Queensland.

A spokeswoman for Random House, which has said it would consider re-issuing the book if Khouri can convince the publisher it is true, would not comment on whether the author lives in Australia or has permanent residency status there.

Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone said her department is investigating Khouri’s case but also would not comment on media reports she was in Australia under a migrant protection visa. Australia has had several spectacular examples of arts fraud in recent years. In 1997, a white Australian man admitted he was the author of a best-selling book in which he had claimed to be an Aboriginal woman kidnapped as a child.