Awards
Third prize winner of the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage
Nominated for the 2006 Samuel Johnson Prize
Synopses & Reviews
In her riveting weblog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation.
In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.
Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city of neighbors whose homes are raided by U.S. troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons, and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman's perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.
Interspersed with these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend's analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Gharib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush's State of the Union Speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic post-war society.
With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media.
Review
"[A] vivid account of occupied Iraq....Feisty and learned: first-rate reading for any American who suspects that Fox News may not be telling the whole story." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[T]he greatest accomplishment of this intriguing book lies in its essential ordinariness. Riverbend is bright and opinionated, true, but...she provides an urgent reminder that, whichever governments we struggle under, we are all the same." Booklist
Review
"Riverbend demonstrates deep familiarity with Iraqi culture and fills a great proportion of her posts with detailed explanations of local customs and traditions....If she is a fake, she is doing tedious research." San Francisco Chronicle
Synopsis
An anonymous Iraqi woman presents eyewitness accounts and political analysis of life in the war torn and occupied city.
Synopsis
In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.
In a voice in turn eloquent, angry, reflective and darkly comic, Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city of neighbors whose homes are raided by US troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. At times, the tragic blends into the absurd, as she tells of her family jumping out of bed to wash clothes and send e-mails in the middle of the night when the electricity is briefly restored, or of their quest to bury an elderly aunt when the mosques are all overbooked for wakes and the cemeteries are all full. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman s perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.
Interspersed with these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend s analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Ghraib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush s State of the Union speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic postwar society.
With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is widely recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media. The book version of this blog will have value-added features: an introduction and timeline of events by veteran journalist James Ridgeway, excerpts from Riverbend s links and an epilogue by Riverbend herself.
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Synopsis
Since the fall of Bagdad, women's voices have been largely erased, but four months after Saddam Hussein's statue fell, a 24 year-old woman from Baghdad began blogging.
In 2003, a twenty-four-year-old woman from Baghdad began blogging about life in the city under the pseudonym Riverbend. Her passion, honesty, and wry idiomatic English made her work a vital contribution to our understanding of post-war Iraq--and won her a large following.
Baghdad Burning is a quotidian chronicle of Riverbend's life with her family between April 2003 and September of 2004. She describes rolling blackouts, intermittent water access, daily explosions, gas shortages and travel restrictions. She also expresses a strong stance against the interim government, the Bush administration, and Islamic fundamentalists like Al Sadr and his followers. Her book "offers quick takes on events as they occur, from a perspective too often overlooked, ignored or suppressed" (Publishers Weekly).
"Riverbend is bright and opinionated, true, but like all voices of dissent worth remembering, she provides an urgent reminder that, whichever governments we struggle under, we are all the same." --Booklist
"Feisty and learned: first-rate reading for any American who suspects that Fox News may not be telling the whole story." --Kirkus
Synopsis
Anonymous Iraqi woman's blog gives a human face to war and occupation.
About the Author
Riverbend is the pseudonym of a woman in her twenties who in 2003 began writing a blog relating her first hand experiences of the U.S. invasion and then occupation of her native Iraq. Once a computer programmer in a modern, secular state, Riverbend discusses with honesty and acute political awareness the changes that resulted in the rise of religious fundamentalism.