From the best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul, an intimate look at the daily lives of women, children, and other noncombatants under siege in Baghdad


For one hundred and one days Asne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Baghdad. Always in search of a story far less obvious than the American military invasion, Seierstad brings to life the world behind the headlines in this compelling--and heartbreaking--account of her time among the people of Iraq. From the moment she first arrived in Baghdad on a ten-day visa, she was determined to unearth the modern secrets of an ancient place and to find out how the Iraqi people really live.


What do people miss most when their world changes overnight? What do they choose to say when they can suddenly say what they like? Seierstad reveals what life is like for everyday people under the constant threat of attack- first from the Iraqi government and later from American bombs. Displaying the novelist's eye and lyrical storytelling that have won her awards around the world, Seierstad here brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters, from foreign press apparatchik Uday, to Zahra, a mother of three, to Aliya, the guide and translator who becomes a friend. Putting their trust in a European woman with no obvious agenda, these and other Iraqis speak for themselves, to tell the stories we never see on the evening news.