Ghaith Abdul-Ahad 
A Stranger in Your Own City 
Travels in the Middle East s Long War

»Exquisite . . . A genuine, melancholy masterpiece» WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
»A journalistic marvel» JAMES MEEK
»A powerful, unforgettable book» NADIFA MOHAMMED
From Orwell Prize winning journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad comes a searing and nuanced biography of a lost Iraq
This is the story of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniac leader who shaped the state in his own image. Then one day, after yet another war, a foreign army invaded, toppled the leader, destroyed the state, and proceeded to invent a new country. This is the story of a people who watched with horror as their world fragmented into a hundred different cities, as walls rose between them and bodies piled in the streets.
From the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS and beyond, A Stranger in Your Own City offers a remarkable de-centring of the West in the history and contemporary situation of the region. What comes to the fore is the effect on the ground: the human cost, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.
»Shatters western assumptions . . . and offers cautious hope» The Observer
»Haunting» Financial Times