Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War - Hardcover

Shadid, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805076026 ISBN 13: 9780805076028

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 2005

Synopsis

From the only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from Iraq, here is a riveting account of ordinary people caught between the struggles
of nations

Like her country, Karima—a widow with eight children—was caught between America and Saddam. It was March 2003 in proud but battered Baghdad. As night drew near, she took her son to board a rickety bus to join Hussein’s army. “God protect you,” she said, handing him something she could not afford to give—the thirty-cent fare.

The Washington Post’s Anthony Shadid also went to war in Iraq although he was neither embedded with soldiers nor briefed by politicians. Because he is fluent in Arabic, Shadid—an Arab American born and raised in Oklahoma—was able to disappear into the divided, dangerous worlds of Iraq. Day by day, as the American dream of freedom clashed with Arab notions of justice, he pieced together the human story of ordinary Iraqis weathering the terrible dislocations and tragedies of war.

Through the lives of men and women, Sunnis and Shiites, American sympathizers and outraged young jihadists newly transformed into martyrs, Shadid shows us the journey of defiant, hopeful, resilient Iraq. Moving from battle scenes to subdued streets enlivened only by the call to prayer, Shadid uses the experiences of his characters to illustrate how Saddam’s downfall paved the way not only for democracy but also for an Islamic reawakening and jihad.

Night Draws Near—as compelling as it is human—is an illuminating and poignant account from a repoter whose coverage has drawn international attention and acclaim.

About this title

About the Author

Anthony Shadid has reported from throughout the Middle East for a decade, first as Cairo correspondent for The Associated Press and then for The Boston Globe, where he drew attention for reports from the West Bank and other fronts. His first book, Legacy of the Prophet, drew praise from the late Edward Said. At The Washington Post his stories have often appeared on page one. For his work in
Baghdad he has received the Overseas Press Club Award (his second), the Michael Kelly Award, and last April was given the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. He currently lives in Baghdad and
Washington, D.C.

Reviews

Born in Oklahoma and fluent in Arabic, journalist Shadid (Legacy of the Prophet) has the gift of a caricature artist, capturing personality in a few deft lines. In this set of reportage-based profiles from Baghdad pre– and post–March 2003, we meet Amal, a 14-year-old girl who moves from faith to fear to gallows humor in her diary; a long-married couple who bicker affectionately (the husband says George Bush is his hero; the wife wants to talk only about the lack of electricity); a Muslim cleric in Sadr City who has "the kind of swagger that a pistol on each hip brings." The portraits are intimate, often set in people's homes, and are rendered with such kindness they fall just short of sentimentality. Yet Shadid does not shy from the ugliness of violence, rendering the swollen corpse of a child left in the sun and the disarray of a bombed house, its front gate "peeled back like a can." The book, which moves among scenes and characters like a picaresque novel, is not only a pleasure to read but a welcome source of information. Shadid offers just enough history and context to orient the reader, and he includes the kinds of details—adages, prayers, lyrics from pop songs—that make a place come alive. In the end, Baghdad is the character he mourns most.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On April 9, 2003, Shadid, a Washington Post reporter, witnessed the toppling of Saddam 's statue in Firdaus Square; a year later, he watched as American troops encircled the square with razor wire, with orders to shoot anyone who crossed it. With that, he writes, the "first lasting image of the American entry … had emerged as a symbol again—this time, of a city returned to the precipice." Shadid won a Pulitzer for his work in Iraq, and his account of the invasion and its uncertain aftermath is both stark and profoundly humane. He visits a father who was forced to execute his son, whose only crime was coöperating with Americans; a cleric who wears a 9-mm. pistol on each hip; and a destitute fourteen-year-old girl who, in her diary, asks God to protect her from bombs. Shadid's concern isn't Pentagon policy but the interior life of the occupation, where the goals of the American mission remain, for the Iraqis he meets, tragically abstract.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Americans are understandably focused upon the loss of our own blood and treasure as the war in Iraq drags on. But this extraordinary work should remind us that it is the people of Iraq who suffered under Saddam and who continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing carnage. Shadid is a Washington Post reporter of Lebanese descent. Unlike most reporters, he was not embedded with a military unit. Fluent in Arabic, he visited Iraq before and during the conflict to gauge the sentiments and experiences of ordinary Iraqis. The result is a frequently moving and sometimes heartbreaking portrait of individuals striving to live their private lives when circumstances often make the pursuit of personal happiness almost impossible. Americans continue to ask if the war is worth our sacrifices; these works suggest that we should regularly pose that question to Iraqis. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

On the road to Diyala, the exodus had begun before dawn, as American troops broke through Iraqi defenses near the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Into rickety flatbed trucks, battered orange-and-white taxis charging sixteen times their usual fare, beat-up Volkswagens and minibuses plastered with signs that read, “God is greatest,” people piled the artifacts of broken lives. There were colorful mattresses and coarse blankets, pots and pans. There were bulging
suitcases and black-and-white televisions.

There were sacks of flour, jerry cans filled with gas, and ovens for baking bread perched precariously in trunks. Most abundant, there were the long gazes out windows, as thousands leaving Baghdad stared out the windows of their vehicles at their uncertain city. Long before dawn, the procession had snarled the main road out of Baghdad to northern Iraq, with bumper-to-bumper traffic stretching as many as five miles. Most people were headed to Diyala, a relatively tranquil province of farms irrigated by a river that shares its name and renowned for its groves of oranges. Many said they would find houses, hotels or share space with relatives already there. How long before their return was a question no one was willing to answer.” When it’s calm, we’ll come back,” Osama Jassim told me, his face drawn. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe a week, maybe a month,” he said when I asked him when he expected to go home.
“It all depends on God.”

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805076026
• ISBN 13: 9780805076028
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448