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A Stranger in Your Own City Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

A Stranger in Your Own City By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

A Stranger in Your Own City by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Reviews:
$12.99
Condition - Very Good
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A Stranger in Your Own City Summary

A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S NON-FICTION BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2023

'Exquisite... a genuine melancholy masterpiece' William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy

'A powerful, unforgettable book' Nadifa Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men

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A work of great beauty and tragedy from a gifted storyteller and reporter. Published on the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, it places the experience of ordinary civilians at its heart.

This is the story of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniac leader who shaped the state in his own image. Then one day, after yet another war, a foreign army invaded, toppled the leader, destroyed the state, and proceeded to invent a new country. This is the story of a people who watched with horror as their world fragmented into a hundred different cities, as walls rose between them and bodies piled in the streets. From the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS and beyond, A Stranger in Your Own City offers a remarkable de-centring of the West in the history and contemporary situation of the region. What comes to the fore is the effect on the ground: the human cost, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.

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'Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is a journalistic marvel and a terrible joy as a writer, never wearying of the world as he maps its cruelties. Eloquent and compassionate, vulnerable, scathing and funny' James Meek, author of To Calais, in Ordinary Time

'A stunning piece of emotional and psychological topography, charting the many clashing lives of pre- and post-invasion Iraq, a book that's at once difficult to read and impossible to put down' Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise

A Stranger in Your Own City Reviews

A crucial and important new voice, as brilliant, passionate and fearless as he is well-informed, skeptical and nuanced. But Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is also a writer of exquisite prose, whose thoughtful, moving and often disturbing work elevates war reportage and the memoir of conflict and loss to levels rarely seen since Michael Herr's Dispatches or James Fenton's All the Wrong Places. A Stranger in Your Own City is that rarity: a genuine melancholy masterpiece' -- William Dalrymple, author of RETURN OF A KING
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 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
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is a journalistic marvel and a terrible joy as a writer, never wearying of the world as he maps its cruelties. He's eloquent and compassionate, vulnerable, scathing and funny when he sketches his personal life as an Iraqi among the American and European press pack, almost unbearably clear when he brings us close to the irredeemable personal injustices of war. Many have crossed over from non-western upbringing into English language reporting, but Abdul-Ahad manages to transcend that binary - he's resolutely of both and neither. It's as if you're watching a live western TV news segment from Iraq, Syria or Yemen, and from out of the crowd of anonymous locals behind the correspondent, a man steps forward, moves the reporter gently aside, and starts to speak into the camera - a reporter too, and better at it than the one he displaced, but never renouncing his old place in the world of the reported on -- James Meek, author of TO CALAIS, IN ORDINARY TIME
Impassioned, brave and brilliant, A Stranger in Your Own City is an essential insider account of the unravelling of Iraq. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad takes the reader on an unforgettable journey across a country torn apart by the centrifugal forces of history and imperial folly. With an unsparing eye and an aching heart, driven by his intimate knowledge and deep personal stakes, Abdul-Ahad draws a compelling and nuanced account of a nation skittering out of control. Wry yet warm, scathing yet affectionate, the book offers an overdue reckoning with a broken history. -- Omar El Akkad, author of WHAT STRANGE PARADISE

About Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad was born in Iraq in 1975. He began writing for the Guardian and the Washington Post after the US-led invasion in 2003 and has reported across Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan for the past twenty years. Putting the experiences of civilians at the heart of his writing, he has won numerous awards including the British Press Awards' Foreign Reporter of the Year, the Orwell Prize for Journalism and two Emmys. He currently lives in Istanbul.

Additional information

GOR013012501
9781529151534
1529151538
A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Cornerstone
2023-03-02
480
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - A Stranger in Your Own City