Travels in the Middle East's Long War
by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2023
432 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war.
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.
"Kaleidoscopic and incisive...Abdul-Ahad details bloody sectarian battles, heart-pounding run-ins with ISIS henchmen, and a populace trying to reclaim its city and country from Iraq's greedy ruling class and those still 'immersed in their selfish sectarian mentalities.' It's a master class in reporting." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Poignant...Abdul-Ahad writes meaningfully as he returns to his homeland.... A sobering, blistering frontline account of internecine warfare in a region crying for peace." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Abdul-Ahad's descriptions of torture and executions, the result of ever-escalating cycles of violence and the breakdown of military discipline, are stomach-churning. But the horrors of war are matched by the author's sympathy for everyday civilians.... His reportage is defined by professional courage.... There is no silver lining of hope or resilience; just bewilderment and loss, made additionally poignant by the author's elegant pencil-and-watercolor illustrations." - Booklist
"In this searing and clear-eyed account of Iraq's last two decades of conflict Abdul-Ahad expresses the broken-heartedness of a man who loses his country over and again to sectarianism and bloodshed. Abdul-Ahad writes with bitter humour and an unsentimental style, using a cast of characters – militiamen, teachers, torturers and doctors – to illuminate actions that seem almost impossible to understand; His reporting on Iraq strips away any myths and refuses to romanticise or glorify anyone or anything. It is a powerful, unforgettable book." - Nadifa Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men
"A Stranger in Your Own City is a stunning piece of emotional and psychological topography, charting the many clashing lives of pre- and post-invasion Iraq. Unlike a parade of books that focused predominantly on the Westerners who helped unleash so much of the country's carnage, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's centers the people who call Iraq home. Through visceral, sometimes first-hand accounts, he tells the stories of both victims and perpetrators, never retreating into artificial neutrality. This is a vital archive of a time and place in history that, in the post-9/11 age, so many would rather forget, a book that's at once difficult to read and impossible to put down." - Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise
This information about A Stranger in Your Own City was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
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