{"title":"Ghaith Abdul-Ahad","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"stranger-in-your-own-city-book-ghaith-abdul-ahad-9781529151534","title":"A Stranger in Your Own City","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 \u0026amp; 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.  From the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS and beyond, A Stranger in Your Own City offers a remarkable de-centring of the West in the history and contemporary situation of the region. What comes to the fore is the effect on the ground: the human cost, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.  'Shatters western assumptions . . . and offers cautious hope' The Observer 'Haunting' Financial Times","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49544356069649,"sku":"GOR013012501","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49653752627473,"sku":"GOR013424815","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50657845838097,"sku":"GOR013060816","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50698502373649,"sku":"NGR9781529151534","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52951482990865,"sku":"GOR014664501","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1529151538.jpg?v=1751435260"},{"product_id":"stranger-in-your-own-city-book-ghaith-abdul-ahad-9781529157178","title":"A Stranger in Your Own City","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 \u0026amp; 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.  From the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS and beyond, A Stranger in Your Own City offers a remarkable de-centring of the West in the history and contemporary situation of the region. What comes to the fore is the effect on the ground: the human cost, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.  'Shatters western assumptions . . . and offers cautious hope' The Observer 'Haunting' Financial Times","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49748036747537,"sku":"NGR9781529157178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49991893942545,"sku":"GOR013830209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51797533786385,"sku":"GOR014405209","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52119381246225,"sku":"GOR014493205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52331331191057,"sku":"NLS9781529157178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/152915717X.jpg?v=1764843430"},{"product_id":"stranger-in-your-own-city-book-ghaith-abdul-ahad-9780593536889","title":"A Stranger in Your Own City","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORKER\u003c\/i\u003e BEST 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\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\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\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\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\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\"Abdul-Ahad's masterpiece.\" \u003ci\u003e--\u003c\/i\u003eOwen Jones, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The 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?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\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.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When 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\u003e and 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\u003e Iraq, seen from the inside: the human cost of violence, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eA Stranger in Your Own City\u003c\/i\u003e is 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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49949643538705,"sku":"CIN0593536886VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49999271330065,"sku":"CIN0593536886G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51004397322513,"sku":"NIN9780593536889","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52083279986961,"sku":"GOR014480550","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0593536886.jpg?v=1750783337"},{"product_id":"unembedded-book-ghaith-abdul-ahad-9781931498951","title":"Unembedded","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401353597201,"sku":"CIN1931498954G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52497643438353,"sku":"CIN1931498954VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1931498954.jpg?v=1751413565"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-ghaith-abdul-ahad.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}