Norma Khouri

Last updated

Norma Khouri is the pen name of author Norma Bagain Toliopoulos (born Norma Bagain in Jordan in 1970). She is the author of the book titled Forbidden Love (known under its original title in Australia, Britain, and Commonwealth nations and as Honor Lost in the United States). The book was published by Random House in 2003. [1]

Contents

The book, which became a bestseller, purported to describe the honor killing of her best friend in Jordan. After criticism from Jordanian writers and groups in regards to numerous errors, the book was exposed as a literary hoax in 2004. [2]

Early life

Khouri was born in Jordan in 1970, and moved to Chicago in the United States with her parents in 1973. She attended a Catholic school in South Chicago.

In 1993, she married John Toliopoulos, the father of her two children, Zoe and Christopher. In about 2001, Khouri, Toliopoulos and their children moved to Australia, from where she published a non-fiction account of the supposed honour killing of her best friend in Jordan. After the revelation of her literary hoax made headline news, she moved back to the United States. She is the subject of the 2007 film Forbidden Lie$ .

Forbidden Love hoax

On July 24, 2004, Malcolm Knox, literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald , revealed that Khouri was not living in Jordan during 1993-1995 (the timeframe of Forbidden Love), but was living in Chicago with her husband, John Toliopoulos, and her two children. She had not lived in Jordan since her early childhood, except for a three-week stay during which she apparently researched the background for her book. Knox further revealed accusations that Khouri had left the United States while being investigated for defrauding an elderly neighbor.

Things were further complicated for Random House Australia, because Khouri was sponsored under the category of nomination for distinguished talent in 2002. On July 28, 2004, the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs announced that Khouri was cleared of violating visa conditions, but Khouri had already left the country of her own accord.

Khouri said she would co-operate with all requests to provide documentation and was said to be preparing to publish her next book A Matter of Honour in November 2004, again by Random House. It appears that this book was not released, as on August 18, 2004, Khouri admitted publicly that she took "literary licence" with the book, claiming that she did not receive any payment or royalties for writing it.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Park</span> New Zealand-Australian writer

Rosina Ruth Lucia Park AM was a New Zealand–born Australian author. Her best known works are the novels The Harp in the South (1948) and Playing Beatie Bow (1980), and the children's radio serial The Muddle-Headed Wombat (1951–1970), which also spawned a book series (1962–1982).

Helen Dale is an Australian writer and lawyer. She is best known for writing The Hand that Signed the Paper, a novel about a Ukrainian family who collaborated with the Nazis in The Holocaust, under the pseudonym Helen Demidenko.

The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.

Forbidden Love is a 2003 book written by Norma Khouri, purporting to tell a true story about her best friend in Jordan, Dalia. The story describes Dalia's love for a Christian soldier, Michael, which is kept secret from her Muslim father due to conflicts in religion. Her father eventually finds out, and stabs Dalia to death in a so-called honor killing. A year after publication, it was discovered that the story was entirely fabricated by Khouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geraldine Brooks (writer)</span> Australian-American journalist and novelist

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian-American journalist and novelist whose 2005 novel March won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Schapelle Leigh Corby is an Australian woman who was convicted of smuggling cannabis into Indonesia. She spent nine years imprisoned on the Indonesian island of Bali in Kerobokan Prison. Since her arrest Corby has publicly maintained that the drugs were planted in her bodyboard bag and that she did not know about them. Her trial and conviction were a major focus of attention for the Australian media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Funder</span> Australian author (born 1966)

Anna Funder is an Australian author. She is the author of Stasiland and All That I Am and the novella The Girl With the Dogs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitty Flanagan</span> Australian comedian

Kitty Flanagan is an Australian comedian, writer and actress who works in Australia and the United Kingdom. She has also performed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Montreal Just For Laughs festival.

Debra Oswald is an Australian writer for film, television, stage, radio and children's fiction. In 2008 her Stories in the Dark won Best Play in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. She created and was head writer of the Channel 10 drama series Offspring, now on Netflix, for which she won the 2011 NSW Premier's Literary Award and the 2014 AACTA Award for best TV screenplay. Her novel Useful was released in 2015, followed by her novel The Whole Bright Year in 2018, both published by Penguin Random House. Her novel The Family Doctor was published by Allen and Unwin in March 2021. Oswald's one-woman stage show, Is There Something Wrong With That Lady, premiered at Sydney's Griffin Theatre in April 2021.

Caroline Overington is an Australian journalist and author. Overington has written 13 books. She has twice won the Walkley Award for investigative journalism, as well as winning the Sir Keith Murdoch prize for journalism (2007), the Blake Dawson Waldron Prize (2008) and the Davitt Award for Crime Writing (2015).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenda Adams</span> Australian novelist and short story writer

Glenda Emilie Adams was an Australian novelist and short story writer, probably best known as the winner of the 1987 Miles Franklin Award for Dancing on Coral. She was a teacher of creative writing, and helped develop writing programs.

<i>My Life as a Fake</i>

My Life as a Fake is a 2003 novel by Australian writer Peter Carey based on the Ern Malley hoax of 1943, in which two poets created a fictitious poet, Ern Malley, and submitted poems in his name to the literary magazine Angry Penguins.

Forbidden Lie$ is an Australian documentary released in September 2007. It was directed by Anna Broinowski.

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2004.

Malcolm Knox, is an Australian journalist and author.

Alice-Miranda is a series of children's novels written by Australian author Jacqueline Harvey. The novels chronicle the adventures of a young student at the Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies. Alice-Miranda At School is the first book in the series and was published in 2010. The series was created by Australian author Jacqueline Harvey, a teacher and former Deputy Head of Junior School and Director of Development at Abbotsleigh. Harvey created the Alice-Miranda series based on her teaching experiences at boarding schools. The series is sold throughout Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Turkey, Hungary and Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Baird (journalist)</span> Australian journalist and author

Julia Woodlands Baird is an Australian journalist, broadcaster and author. She contributes to The New York Times and The Sydney Morning Herald and is a regular host of The Drum, a television news review program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Her non-fiction work includes a bestselling memoir and a biography on Queen Victoria.

Anna Broinowski is a Walkley Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author.

Toni Jordan is a Melbourne-based novelist best known for her debut novel Addition, an international bestseller long listed for the Miles Franklin Award. In 2017 her fourth book, Our Tiny Useless Hearts, was shortlisted for the Voss Literary Prize. Her novel Nine Days was named the Indie Book of the Year by the Australian Booksellers in 2013. She currently teaches at the Faber Academy.

References

  1. "The lies stripped bare". Sydney Morning Herald. 2004-07-24. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
  2. Knox, Malcolm (24 July 2004). "Bestseller's lies exposed". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 June 2011.