{"product_id":"a-stranger-in-your-own-city-travels-in-the-middle-easts-long-war-9780593536889","title":"A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORKER \u003c\/i\u003eBEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"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 \u003ci\u003eThe Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A vital archive of a time and place in history...Impossible to put down.\"--Omar El Akkad, author of \u003ci\u003eWhat Strange Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eThe history of reportage has often depended on outsiders\u003cb\u003e--\u003c\/b\u003eRyszard 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? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Stranger in Your Own City\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen 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 \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian \u003c\/i\u003eand 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 \u003ci\u003etheir \u003c\/i\u003eIraq, seen from the inside: the human cost of violence, the shifting allegiances, the generational change. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Stranger in Your Own City \u003c\/i\u003eis 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGHAITH 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 \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian.\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Knopf Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50630182437138,"sku":"9780593536889","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_85c62fd5-72c7-434f-901b-ff7fb6417cf4.jpg?v=1732745441","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-stranger-in-your-own-city-travels-in-the-middle-easts-long-war-9780593536889","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}