The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
'In 2004 Norma Khouri's bestselling story of honour killing, Forbidden Love (2003), was revealed to be a hoax. Unexpectedly, in the aftermath of the hoax the fate of Khouri and her book became the subject of a major feminist documentary film by Anna Broinowski, Forbidden Lie$ (2007). The film offers a rigorous consideration of the hoax and its importance in debates about the politics and ethics of transnational and cross-cultural feminist engagements with narratives of distant suffering now. The film reincarnates the hoaxer into a renewed vivid presence, that opens possibilities for thinking about (and with) the hoax and, at the same time, raises questions about the ethics of feminist campaigns against honour killing.' Source: Gillian Whitlock.