Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq

Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq

by Farnaz Fassihi
Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq

Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq

by Farnaz Fassihi

eBook

$17.99 

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Since 2003, Iraq's bloody legacy has been well-documented by journalists, historians, politicians, and others confounded by how Americans were seduced into the war. Yet almost no one has spoken at length to the constituency that represents Iraq's last best hope for a stable country: its ordinary working and middle class.

Farnaz Fassihi, The Wall Street Journal's intrepid senior Middle East correspondent, bridges this gap by unveiling an Iraq that has remained largely hidden since the United States declared their "Mission Accomplished." Fassihi chronicles the experience of the disenfranchised as they come to terms with the realities of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In an unforgettable portrait of Iraqis whose voices have remained eerily silent -- from art gallery owners to clairvoyants, taxi drivers to radicalized teenagers -- Fassihi brings to life the very people whose goodwill the U.S. depended upon for a successful occupation. Haunting and lyrical, Waiting for An Ordinary Day tells the long-awaited story of post-occupation Iraq through native eyes.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780786726189
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Publication date: 09/09/2008
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Pages: 368
File size: 497 KB

About the Author

Farnaz Fassihi is the deputy bureau chief for Middle East and Africa for the Wall Street Journal, now based in Beirut, Lebanon. She joined the Journal in January 2003 and was immediately sent to Iraq. Her family is Iranian-American; she has degrees in English from Tehran University and in journalism from Columbia University. Prior to joining the Journal, she was a roving foreign correspondent for the Star Ledger of Newark, N.J., and a reporter for the Providence Journal.

Table of Contents


Map of Iraq     IX
Foreword     XI
Fall 2002: Finding Baghdad
Yes, Yes, to Our Leader Saddam     3
Nobody in Iraq Wants War     11
No Problem between Sunnis and Shiites     23
If You Like It, I Can Make You a Good Price     34
April 2003: The Americans Call It the New Iraq, but the Iraqis Call It the Situation
Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq     43
Kirkuk     46
Tikrit     49
Baghdad     52
Year 2003: This Isn't the Way It Was Supposed to Be
I Can Bring Back the Dead     57
We Will Be Strong, Absolutely Strong     72
The Sunnis Are Like Sheep without a Shepherd     87
I Think, Yes, It Will Get Better in 2004     102
Look at How Much Freedom We Have     112
Year 2004: If They See Me with You, They'll Kill Me
My Ambulance Is Like Iraq; It Is Cursed     127
Is This Freedom? Where Is Your Freedom, Mr. Bush?     136
My Name Is Moonlover, So Romantic, So Free     157
A Place of No Dreams     165
Imagine If New York Were Baghdad     180
No Informal Guests Are Invited Here     183
He Sits All Day Waiting for Someone to Die     190
This Is a Holy City; I Have to Respect All the Lawsof Islam     198
Do We Stay or Do We Leave?     205
You Go into a City Like This Already Dead, and You Fight Your Way Out     210
A Place of Mortars and Bullets     214
Year 2005: Our House May Never Be Safe for Us
When They Say, Pick This Person, We Obey     221
Every Good Muslim Woman Must Think This Way, My Dear     236
You Are Next; Leave the House as Soon as You Can     248
If the Teacher Asks, Tell Her I Was Kidnapped     257
Our Life Here Is Not Real Living     267
Epilogue     274
E-mail to Family and Friends, September 2004     281
Acknowledgments     287
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews