Description
SELECTED BY THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND DAUNTS BOOKS AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
WINNER OF THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
ONE OF PROSPECT''S POLITICS & REPORTAGE BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023
''Exquisite . . . A genuine, melancholy masterpiece'' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
''A journalistic marvel'' JAMES MEEK
''A powerful, unforgettable book'' NADIFA MOHAMMED
From Orwell Prize winning journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad comes a searing and nuanced biography of a lost Iraq
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.