Carmen Bin Laden talks about the failure of her marriage, the role of women in modern Saudi Arabia and the launch of her novel, The Veiled Kingdom.

One of four sisters born to an aristocratic Iranian mother and Swiss father, Carmen Dufour was brought up in Lausanne. She met Yeslam Bin Laden in Geneva in 1973, and says of him: "He was a very intelligent man, he was a handsome man and he was a charming man. And I just fell in love." The couple married in 1974 and two years later, they moved to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia so Yeslam could work for the family construction business. At first, Yeslam was an understanding husband and allowed her far greater freedom than many Saudi men would extend to their wives

Carmen tells presenter Mishal Husain that she knew Osama only distantly - he was one of 54 children of the patriarch Mohammed Bin Laden - but her meetings with him underlined his extreme conservatism.

She says that Osama was widely admired and respected for his views. She also can't understand why the Bin Laden family has severed all ties with Osama.

At the time of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States, her eldest daughter Wafah was living in New York. She was hounded by the Press and some newspapers suggested that Wafah knew about al-Qaeda's plans.

She decided to write a book to explain her decisions to her daughters, and also to explain something to the world. She is famously the only member of her family who's listed in a telephone directory and there has been much speculation about whether she would change her surname.

She continues, "Because I had the Bin Laden name, I had to live a very difficult time. If I wanted to profit from the Bin Ladens a long time ago, I would have chosen the easier way, I would have left my daughters to be brainwashed or to deny me. And I chose to fight."