A Stranger in Your Own City : Travels in the Middle East's Long War

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

ISBN 10: 0593536886 / ISBN 13: 9780593536889

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Mär 2023, 2023

About this Item

Neuware - From award-winning journalist and Baghdad-native Ghaith Abdul-Ahad comes a powerful portrait of his city and the Iraqi people told through twenty years of war The history of reportage has depended on outsiders-Ryzard Kapuscinski witnessing the fall of the shah in Iran, Frances Fitzgerald observing the aftermath of the American war in Vietnam. What would happen if a native son was so estranged from his city by war that he could, in essence, view it as an outsider What kind of portrait of a war-wracked place and people might he present A Stranger in Your Own City is award-winning writer Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's beautiful, shattering answer. This is not a book about Iraq's history, nor an inventory of the many Middle Eastern wars that have consumed the nation over the past several decades, though both wars and history are part of its narrative, including the 2003 American invasion, the Arab Spring, and the rise of ISIS. This is the tale of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniac leader who shaped the state in his own image; who watched a foreign army invade, topple that leader, demolish the state, and then invent a new country; who experienced the horror of having their home fragmented into a hundred different cities. When 'Shock and Awe' began in March of 2003, Abdul-Ahad was an architect. Within months he would become a translator, then a fixer, then a full-time reporter for The Guardian and elsewhere, chronicling the unbuilding of his centuries-old cosmopolitan city. Beginning at that moment and spanning twenty years, Abdul-Ahad's book offers a remarkable decentering of the West, and in its place emerges space for everyday people, soldiers, mercenaries, people blown sideways through life by the war. What comes to the fore is the effect on the ground: the human cost, the shifting allegiances, the generational change. A Stranger in Your Own City is a rare work of beauty and tragedy whose power and relevance lies in its attempt to return the land to the people it belongs to.

Seller Inventory # 9780593536889

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Stranger in Your Own City : Travels in the Middle East's Long War
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Mär 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593536886
• ISBN 13: 9780593536889
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 236W x 162H x 40D millimeters 236 millimeters width by 162 millimeters height by 40 millimeters depth
• Weight: 771 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war.

"An essential insider account of the unravelling of Iraq...Driven by his intimate knowledge and deep personal stakes, Abdul-Ahad...offers an overdue reckoning with a broken history."--Declan Walsh, author of The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

"A vital archive of a time and place in history...Impossible to put down."--Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise

"Abdul-Ahad's masterpiece." --Owen Jones, The Guardian

The history of reportage has often depended on outsiders--Ryszard Kapuściński witnessing the fall of the shah in Iran, Frances FitzGerald observing the aftermath of the American war in Vietnam. What would happen if a native son was so estranged from his city by war that he could, in essence, view it as an outsider? What kind of portrait of a war-wracked place and people might he present?

A Stranger in Your Own City is award-winning writer Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's vivid, shattering response. This is not a book about Iraq's history or an inventory of the many Middle Eastern wars that have consumed the nation over the past several decades. This is the tale of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniacal leader who shaped the state in his own image; a people who watched a foreign army invade, topple that leader, demolish the state, and then invent a new country; who experienced the horror of having their home fragmented into a hundred different cities.

When the "Shock and Awe" campaign began in March 2003, Abdul-Ahad was an architect. Within months he would become a translator, then a fixer, then a reporter for The Guardian and elsewhere, chronicling the unbuilding of his centuries-old cosmopolitan city. Beginning at that moment and spanning twenty years, Abdul-Ahad's book decenters the West and in its place focuses on everyday people, soldiers, mercenaries, citizens blown sideways through life by the war, and the proliferation of sectarian battles that continue to this day. Here is their Iraq, seen from the inside: the human cost of violence, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.

A Stranger in Your Own City is a rare work of beauty and tragedy whose power and relevance lie in its attempt to return the land to the people to whom it belongs.

About the Author

GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD is an Iraqi journalist. Born in Baghdad in 1975, he trained as an architect before he was conscripted into Saddam Hussein's army, which he deserted. Soon after U.S.-led coalition forces took control of Baghdad in April 2003, he began writing for The Guardian. He has won numerous awards, including the British Press Awards' Foreign Reporter of the Year and two News and Documentary Emmy Awards. He currently lives in Istanbul.