Baghdad Diaries: A Woman's Chronicle of War and Exile (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781400075256)

In this often moving, sometimes wry account of life in Baghdad during the first war on Iraq and in exile in the years following, Iraqi-born, British-educated artist Nuha al-Radi shows us the effects of war on ordinary people. She recounts the day-to-day realities of living in a city under siege, where food has to be consumed or thrown out because there is no way to preserve it, where eventually people cannot sleep until the nightly bombing commences, where packs of stray dogs roam the streets (and provide her own dog Salvi with a harem) and rats invade homes. Through it all, al-Radi works at her art and gathers with neighbors and family for meals and other occasions, happy and sad.

In the wake of the war, al-Radi lives in semi-exile, shuttling between Beirut and Amman, travelling to New York, London, Mexico and Yemen. As she suffers the indignities of being an Iraqi in exile, al-Radi immerses us in a way of life constricted by the stress and effects of war and embargoes, giving texture to a reality we have only been able to imagine before now. But what emanates most vibrantly from these diaries is the spirit of endurance and the celebration of the smallest of life's joys.

Author: Nuha Al-Radi
ISBN-10: 1400075254
ISBN-13: 9781400075256
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 05/06/2003
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.52lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.20w x 0.59d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/05/2003 pg. 216
Kliatt 09/01/2003 pg. 32