Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Part reportage, part memoir, A Stranger in Your Own City is Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's account of the last quarter century or so of the history of that battered country. Abdul-Ahad brings an insider's, on-the-ground perspective to play here—Americans appear only as frequent, impersonal bombing raids which result in horrific civilian death tolls—as not only a native of Baghdad but someone who's spent time as a journalist embedded with various factions and organisations. There are so many tense moments recounted here, particularly his near-miss from death in a truck bombing. He documents warfare and the essential collapse of the Iraqi state, while at the same time making the argument for a resilient sense of Iraqi identity. Abdul-Ahad sees sectarianism in the country less as something innate or timeless than as something ginned up in recent decades to serve the ends of those in power.

Towards the end of the book, as Abdul-Ahad's own perspective and experiences recede, A Stranger in Your Own City loses some of its power, but this never fails to be a grim, gripping, and sometimes darkly comedic book. How do Bush and Blair sleep at night?… (meer)