Ayaan begins the text with recounting the killing of her close friend and associate, the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, in 2004 in Amsterdam. Ayaan and Theo had been receiving death threats for their short film Submission, Part 1, which is about Muslim women questioning their God about the injustices perpetuated in His name. Ali and Theo knew Submission was a dangerous film to make, yet Theo persisted, as he was a courageous man. When it was suggested that he remove his name from the film’s credits, the Dutchman bristled at the suggestion, saying it went against all his principles.

On the fateful November morning of his death, Theo cycles down the street of Linnaeusstraat in Amsterdam. Muhammad Bouyari, a Moroccan immigrant, has been waiting for Theo. He steps out of a doorway and shoots Theo several times in the chest. As Theo falls off his bicycle, Bouayri saws Theo’s throat with a butcher knife. Bouyari leaves Theo dead with a letter stabbed onto his chest with a knife: The letter is addressed to Ayaan, warning her that she is next.

Ayaan confesses that people often ask her why she continues to speak out, despite the dangers she faces. She answers the question for the reader: She does not have a death wish, but speaks out because the price of silence is higher than the death of her individual self. She goes on to say that this book is the record of her life and her family, and how she came to become a Member of Parliament in Holland at the age of 30. The memoir is an attempt to set the record straight about her, since people do not know her past completely.

Ali notes that she continues to pay the price for speaking up. In 2006, her neighbors in the safe-house she was renting from the state, complained they found her presence threatening. A judge concluded Ali needed to move out. Later, a controversy erupted about her right to Dutch citizenship, cementing her decision to move to the United States. She dedicates this book to her family, and “also to the millions and millions of Muslim women who have had to submit” (1).