Into Kurdistan is a journey through the lives of a people without a country. Part travelogue and part political commentary, it portrays both the pride and the oppression of the Kurdish people.

Sheri Laizer recounts the drama of a family living close to the border, hearing gunshots and wondering if a favoured son will make it home at night. She shares the companionship of Kurdish women in the mountains, washing in the melted snow. She captures the ambiguity of Kurdish intellectuals entwined in the cultural life of Turkey, a country which refuses to acknowledge the very existence of Kurdish identity. And she paints a vivid picture of the centuries of tradition behind the people who have given the Middle East some of its greatest heroes, from Saladin onwards.

Into Kurdistan uncovers the recent atrocities in Iraq, and the systematic persecution suffered by the Kurds in Turkey. In a marvellous blend of political commentary, folktale and sympathetic observation, Sheri Laizer helps us understand the people behind the headlines.