A Stranger in Your Own City

Praise

WINNER of the Edward Stanford Travel Award ●  A BEST BOOK of Politics in 2023 at The Financial Times

“A powerful and beautifully written portrait of the soul and psychology of a nation reeling from one cataclysm to the next . . . This book isn’t merely a catalog of atrocity, though. Nor, compared to other books on the Iraq War, is it unduly grim. . . . Abdul-Ahad’s allegiance is to the actual Iraqi people, wronged by so many, by foreign invaders and corrupt politicians and criminals and militia commanders and their own worst impulses. The dead will be forgotten, the killers and bandits and soldiers will keep inventing new horrors, ‘but they all remain the same people—Iraqis.’ There is a challenge and a steely optimism there, one that would have rattled my confidence back in 2007, but that gives me hope in 2023.”—Phil Klay, The Wall Street Journal

“A tragic, brutal picture of the build-up to a conflict that engulfed a nation . . . Chronicles the past two decades of turmoil with an engaging blend of memoir, reportage and interviews. It is a story of catastrophic societal breakdown, culminating in violence and terror on an unprecedented scale . . . Bracing and heart-rending.”—Houman Barekat, The Guardian

“[Abdul-Ahad’s] kaleidoscopic view emphasizes aspects of ordinary Iraqi lives which are lost in the simplistic interpretations of outsiders.”—The New Yorker

“A powerful, unflinching eyewitness account of what happened to Iraq, then Syria, after the US invasion of March 2003 . . . A superbly written mix of reportage and memoir is punctuated by the author’s distinctive illustrations . . . A book that makes vivid the horror of two blood-soaked decades.”—James Barr, The Times (UK)

“Excellent . . . A haunting account of the impact of western policies premised on sectarianism that engulfed [Iraq] after 2003.”—Charles Clover, Financial Times

“Vivid . . . Truly haunting . . . Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has written an astonishing book. To read A Stranger in Your Own City is virtually to live through the past 40 wretched years of Iraq’s history.”—Lara Marlowe, The Irish Times

“An extraordinary account…Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad goes further than anyone else in documenting [his homeland’s] bloody history [after the 2003 invasion]…Abdul-Ahad was one of the first reporters to cover Hashd al-Shaabi…[and] went to places that almost no Western reporters dared to go.” —Joshua Hammer, The New York Review of Books

“Abdul-Ahad recounts [the Iraq War] in evocative prose that makes the indictment that underlies not just his words, but also those of his fellow Iraqis, all the more potent.”—Michael Prodger, The New Statesman

“Monumental . . . Abdul-Ahad’s depictions of horror and injustice make for grimly compelling reading, due to his vivid prose and eye for detail. . . . Important and insightful, A Stranger in Your Own City is a comprehensive history of an agonisingly long conflict. At the same time, it is a collection of stories of struggle and suffering, but also of fortitude and endurance.”—Malcom Forbes, The National

“Outstanding and courageous . . . A brilliant, comprehensive account of the last two decades in Iraq. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has written a masterpiece. . . . This book should become the most prominent first-hand history of the awful Iraq disaster.”—James North, Mondoweiss

“[A Stranger in Your Own City] is magnificent. It is a deep dive into understanding the effects of an invasion and occupation and, beyond that, the entire region.”—Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

“[A Stranger in Your Own City] shatters some of the assumptions held in western capitals about the country. . . . This isn’t just a book about war. It’s also about the generation who saw the folly in the invasion’s design and rose up. . . . [A Stranger in Your Own City] offers cautious hope.”—Renad Mansour, The Guardian

“Abdul-Ahad’s descriptions of torture and executions, the result of ever-escalating cycles of violence and the breakdown of military discipline, are stomach-churning. But the horrors of war are matched by the author’s sympathy for everyday civilians. . . . His reportage is defined by professional courage. . . . There is no silver lining of hope or resilience; just bewilderment and loss, made additionally poignant by the author’s elegant pencil-and-watercolor illustrations.”—Booklist

“This candid view of modern-day Iraq charts the nation’s history from the time of the US invasion in 2003 to the present day. In doing so, it untangles the Western stranglehold on its narrative and makes an effort to look through the eyes of ordinary Iraqis, who watched their world slowly fall apart.”—Wanderlust

“In this searing and clear-eyed account of Iraq’s last two decades of conflict Abdul-Ahad expresses the broken-heartedness of a man who loses his country over and again to sectarianism and bloodshed. Abdul-Ahad writes with bitter humour and an unsentimental style, using a cast of characters – militiamen, teachers, torturers and doctors – to illuminate actions that seem almost impossible to understand; His reporting on Iraq strips away any myths and refuses to romanticise or glorify anyone or anything. It is a powerful, unforgettable book.”—Nadifa Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men

“A Stranger in Your Own City is a stunning piece of emotional and psychological topography, charting the many clashing lives of pre- and post-invasion Iraq. Unlike a parade of books that focused predominantly on the Westerners who helped unleash so much of the country’s carnage, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s centers the people who call Iraq home. Through visceral, sometimes first-hand accounts, he tells the stories of both victims and perpetrators, never retreating into artificial neutrality. This is a vital archive of a time and place in history that, in the post-9/11 age, so many would rather forget, a book that’s at once difficult to read and impossible to put down.”—Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise

“In A Stranger in Your Own City, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is the rarest of documentarians. Having grown up in Baghdad before the American invasion, and then having worked for the foreign press, Abdul-Ahad is a stranger in the best sense of the term—a man between regimes, between languages, between even forms of expression. His beautiful line drawings are just as expressive as his trenchant prose. This book reminds us of the human costs of a war that most Americans have chosen to forget.”—Peter Hessler, author of The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution

“If meaning originates in memory and detail, this formidable book is a supreme artistic act of preservation. It is a biography of a lost Iraq, found within Abdul Ahad’s exuberant and caustic sensibility, tracing the seismic shifts of the past decades through family history, transformed neighborhoods, and an inescapable legacy of state violence. It is fastidious with facts but also passionate empathetic and worldly, to my mind a masterpiece that I forced myself to shut every few pages, so it would last and last.”—Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran

“A crucial and important new voice, as brilliant, passionate and fearless as he is well-informed, skeptical and nuanced. But Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is also a writer of exquisite prose, whose thoughtful, moving and often disturbing and work elevates war reportage and the memoir of conflict and loss to levels rarely seen since Michael Herr’s Dispatches or James Fenton’s All the Wrong Places. A Stranger in Your Own City is that rarity: a genuine melancholy masterpiece.”—William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
 
“Impassioned, brave and brilliant, A Stranger in Your Own City is an essential insider account of the unravelling of Iraq. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad takes the reader on an unforgettable journey across a country torn apart by the centrifugal forces of history and imperial folly. With an unsparing eye and an aching heart, driven by his intimate knowledge and deep personal stakes, Abdul-Ahad draws a compelling and nuanced account of a nation skittering out of control. Wry yet warm, scathing yet affectionate, the book offers an overdue reckoning with a broken history.”—Declan Walsh, author of The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

“Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is a journalistic marvel and a terrible joy as a writer, never wearying of the world as he maps its cruelties. He’s eloquent and compassionate, vulnerable, scathing and funny when he sketches his personal life as an Iraqi among the American and European press pack, almost unbearably clear when he brings us close to the irredeemable personal injustices of war.”—James Meek, author of To Calais, In Ordinary Time

“Poignant . . . Abdul-Ahad writes meaningfully as he returns to his homeland. . . . A sobering, blistering frontline account of internecine warfare in a region crying for peace.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Kaleidoscopic and incisive . . . Abdul-Ahad details bloody sectarian battles, heart-pounding run-ins with ISIS henchmen, and a populace trying to reclaim its city and country from Iraq’s greedy ruling class and those still ‘immersed in their selfish sectarian mentalities.’ It’s a master class in reporting.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)