The book is an extraordinary work of memoir, reportage and storytelling. It begins with the author's earliest years growing up in Mosul, then charts the city's capture and occupation by ISIS, that group's eventual defeat, and the city's post-liberation rebirth. The story unfolds through the poignant eyewitness accounts of many different people. Ahmed places these accounts in context, writing sometimes as a journalist and social historian and, at other times, by providing his personal recollection of events. In addition to eyewitness accounts, he includes poems and transcriptions of key radio broadcasts. Following the eyewitness accounts, the author presents Interwoven Stories, a chapter based on composite characters, sharing narratives that, for reasons of people's safety, could not be told in any other way. The book concludes with a series of inspiring accounts of how the city is re-emerging from its trauma, led by citizens undertaking volunteer work and changing cultural perceptions of women. - Camilla Reeve, Editor
Ahmed Zaidan has returned to his roots and written a book that looks deeply into the tragic reality of his hometown, Mosul, abandoned after a supposedly liberating invasion to the savagery of sectarian warfare, and then beyond this to the possibilities of a rebirth. As an unflinching journalist he shows us what happened to drive him into his own refugee experience and how it feels to hear the news from home as your city is torn apart and people you love lose their homes and lives. He digs deep into stories of ordinary people and his own childhood in Iraq. He looks atrocity directly in the eye and closely examines geopolitical and local fault-lines that led to the catastrophe of Mosul falling to the Islamic State.
As well as being a journalist, Ahmed is also always a poet, hope is embedded in his world view, he sees the good hearts of those who maintain their dignity in the face of horror and finds lyrical beauty in the survival of humanity in the ruined city and its aftermath. Somehow, he finds shoots of a revived civilisation, shines a light on individual and community projects and celebrates possibility. This is a remarkable book in its scope and its personal testimony that sees beyond stereotypes and shows us that this is our world not a distant tale, that this rubble is where we all may dwell when hatred has the hour, and the only hope for the future lies in a recognition of our common humanity and in acceptance of our differences. -
Andy Willoughby, Poet and Playwright.
