Quite honestly I did not know about this book until I learned about it while reading NBC correspondent Don Teague's book Saved by Her Enemy: An Iraqi woman's journey from the heart of war to the heartland of America. In the former the author wrote about a young Iraqui woman turned translator he helped save from certain death while she was employed helping Americans in her native country. Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing up in the Shadow of Saddamis a remarkable book written by an Iraqui woman herself. Unlike Teague's translator, who came from more humble beginnings, the author of this book was born into privilege, the daughter of Saddam Hussein's former personal pilot. You would not have expected to have such a woman end up championing the cause of many abused women. It took being raped by her husband of an arranged marriage to inspire the author to passionately start helping women like herself.As the book jacket informs us the author, Zainab Salbi, is the founder and president of Women for Women International, "a nonprofit organization providing women survivors to move from crisis to stability and build peace one woman at a time." Salbi is a very intelligent and highly educated woman holding degrees from George Mason University and the London School of Economics. She wrote the book in conjunction with Laurie Becklund, "an award-winning Los Angeles journalist and author...A former LOS ANGELES TIMES reporter, she wrote the first story about Salbi in 1991, when Zainab was a young woman stranded in America due to the Gulf War." It is at that time the author had just left her abusive husband and found herself unable to return to her native country.The book begins with Salbi writing about her growing up in Iraq where her family was placed in the uneviable position of having to (more or less forcibly)socialize with Saddam Hussein. The author vividly describes her impressions of the dictator and her knowledge of the fear he instilled in all those around him. Salbi's mother fearing that her daughter might herself become a victim if she remained in Iraq strongly encouraged Zainab to marry one of her countrymen already in the United States thus having a place to which she could find refuge. Instead Zainab became a victim of this man. She tolerated ill treatment for quite some time before the ultimate insult--marital rape-- at which point she decided to leave her husband. After a divorce and some time had passed the author found someone who was truly kind and supportive of her endeavors. Along with her new husband she founded Women to Women International, the first to benefit from being the many women who had been forced into "rape camps" in Bosnia.This is truly an inspirational book. I am not surprised to learn that the author has made frequent apperances on the Oprah Winfrey show. Winfrey, as many of us know, herself has done much to empower women to escape abusive situations. I would strongly recommend this book especially to all women who have ever suffered ill treatment, work with victims of abuse or aspire to one day.