Late for Tea at the Deer Palace by Tamara Chalabi

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace by Tamara Chalabi

A lyrical, haunting, multi-generational memoir of one familys tempestuous century in Iraq from 1900 to the present.

‘In this absorbing book [Chalabi] has wrapped up much that is important in Iraq’s history in the story of her own family’s development through the 20th century…She does so beautifully, in a complex family memoir attuned to the beats of Iraqi history…Chalabi’s aim is to reclaim for her readers a country that war and news have reduced to “a desert of tanks, screaming women and barefoot children”She succeeds: a meditation on exile, a moving family portrait, thoughtful and well-researched, “Late for Tea” gives Iraq, as much as the Chalabi family, its story.’ Jason Goodwin, Spectator

‘Delicate and intricately wrought…there is a sense of poignancy and acute longing for an Iraq that is all but unrecognisable today’ Traveller

‘Tamara’s tale is not about WMDs or insurgents. It is the story of a bourgeois Iraqi family set against the opulent backdrop of the Ottoman Empire…It is the story of Iraq, but told from an Iraqi woman’s perspective; then it also becomes the story of a young woman’s struggle for identity…“Late for Tea at the Deer Palace” has a whimsical, magical quality’ Janine di Giovani, Telegraph

‘Chalabi describes a litany of privilege through the 1930s and 1940s: picnics on islands in the Tigris, tea parties with royal princesses, card games, matchmaking and gossip…From the sweet buffalo cream her great-grandfather adores to the dancing girls in the risqué new cafes her grandfather frequents, the richness of an “expired epoch” long past is lovingly rendered’ Wendell Steavenson, Sunday Times

Tamara Chalabi has a PhD from Harvard University in History. Her first book, 'The Shi'is of Jabal'Amil and the New Lebanon: 1918-1943' was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2006. She has written for the 'Sunday Times', 'New Republic', 'Wall Street Journal', 'Slate' and 'Prospect', on war, culture, encounters, and identities. She lives in London.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780007249312
ISBN 10	0007249314
Title	Late for Tea at the Deer Palace
Author	Tamara Chalabi
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	2010-08-05
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.