Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: Four Generations of My Family in Iraq - Softcover

Chalabi, Tamara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007249322 ISBN 13: 9780007249329

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011

Synopsis

The dramatic tale of one family's tempestuous century in Iraq from 1900 to the present. An exquisite multi-generational memoir, 'Late for Tea at the Deer Palace' tells the story of an extraordinary family's century in Iraq. It brings to life the fascinating history of a nation from its days as a province of the Ottoman Empire, through to European domination, independence, revolution, dictatorship and the wars that have seized the attention of the modern world. From the grand opulence of her great-grandfather's house in Ottoman Baghdad and her larger than life grandmother, Tamara Chalabi guides us through several generations until the moment when the country's order, to which her family belonged, comes crashing down. In 2003, she visits her ancestral home for the first time and finds a country sliding out of the tyrannical grip of Saddam's rule. She must find a way to reconcile the old and the new, a sense of alienation with a longing for a homeland. As she explores the nature of identity, memory and what it means to have inherited exile, the magic of this country and its people are brought to life. Bringing together east and west, the poetic and the political, Chalabi recreates an old world that has been lost behind recent headlines of war, occupation and suicide bombings.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

For Tamara Chalabi, Iraq is more than a country of war and controversy; it is a place of poignant memory. For much of the twentieth century, the Chalabis were among the most influential families in Iraq. In the 1920s they were at the forefront of their country's awakening to modernity, and they played an integral part in the establishment of its monarchy. As courtiers, politicians, businessmen, rebels, merchants, and scholars, the Chalabis enjoyed vast privilege until the end of the 1950s, when they were forced to flee to the land of exile, myth, and imagination, where their beloved homeland took on the quality of a phantom country. In between came rebellions, foreign interventions, and the transformative development of oil wealth.

But in 2003, after a lifetime of exile, Tamara arrived in Baghdad just ten days after the city's fall, in the company of her father, Ahmad Chalabi, a leading opposition figure against the Saddam regime. Late for Tea at the Deer Palace chronicles a daughter's return to a homeland she'd known only through stories and her own imagination. As she investigates four generations of her family's history, Tamara offers a rich portrait of Middle Eastern family life and a provocative look at a lost Iraq. The story is populated by an array of unforgettable characters, among them Tamara's great-grandfather Abdul Hussein Chalabi, who as a member of the Ottoman parliament witnessed the end of the empire in Baghdad and the birth of the modern Iraqi state at the hands of the British; her grandfather Abdul Hadi Chalabi, who became one of the wealthiest men in Iraq and had strong ties with the British during World War II; and her grandmother Bibi, a grande dame who presided over Iraq's social and political life during Baghdad's 1920s and '30s heyday as the Paris of the Middle East.

At once intimate and magisterial, Late for Tea at the Deer Palace vividly captures the rich, overlooked history of a country that has been uprooted by war and a family that has persevered by never forgetting its dreams or its past.

About the Author:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0007249322
• ISBN 13: 9780007249329
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352