Awards
Winner of the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize
A Seattle Times Top Ten Best Book of the Year 2005
Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book PrizeA Washington Post Book World Top Five Nonfiction Book of the Year
A Seattle Times Top Ten Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year In 2003, The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid went to war in Iraq, but not as an embedded journalist. Born and raised in Oklahoma, of Lebanese descent, Shadid, a fluent Arabic speaker, has spent the last three years dividing his time between Washington, D.C., and Baghdad. The only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his extraordinary coverage of Iraq, Shadid is also the only writer to describe the human story of ordinary Iraqis weathering the unexpected impact of America's invasion and occupation. Through the moving stories of individual Iraqis, Shadid shows how Saddam's downfall paved the way not just for hopes of democracy but also for the importation of jihad and the rise of a bloody insurgency. "A superb reporter's book," wrote Seymour Hersh; Night Draws Near is, according to Mark Danner, "essential."
Review
"[I]ncisive and eloquent....[A] book that gives a harrowing portrait of life in postwar Iraq and the fallout that the American war has had on ordinary Iraqi civilians." Michiko Kakutani, the New York Times
Review
"Unique in its breadth, its supremely elegant writing, and in the biography of its author." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Shadid moves deftly between revealing, exemplary, close-up personal stories and a wide-angled historical analysis that is remarkably engaging and accessible." Boston Globe
Review
"[A]s a piece of reporting on the forces that are shaping today's Iraq, this is as fine a book as one could hope to read." Washington Post
Synopsis
In 2003, The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid went to war in Iraq, but not as an embedded journalist. Born and raised in Oklahoma, of Lebanese descent, Shadid, a fluent Arabic speaker, has spent the last three years dividing his time between Washington, D.C., and Baghdad. The only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his extraordinary coverage of Iraq, Shadid is also the only writer to describe the human story of ordinary Iraqis weathering the unexpected impact of America's invasion and occupation. Through the moving stories of individual Iraqis, Shadid shows how Saddam's downfall paved the way not just for hopes of democracy but also for the importation of jihad and the rise of a bloody insurgency. "A superb reporter's book," wrote Seymour Hersh; Night Draws Near is, according to Mark Danner, "essential."
About the Author
Anthony Shadid has reported for the Associated Press, The Boston Globe, and, since the beginning of the war in Iraq, The Washington Post. In addition to the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, his stories from Iraq have earned him an American Society of Newspaper Editors award for deadline news reporting and the Overseas Press Club's Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper or wire-service reporting from abroad. While at The Boston Globe, Shadid was awarded the 2002 George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting for a series of dispatches from the Middle East. An Arab-American of Lebanese descent, he was born and raised in Oklahoma and now lives in Washington, D.C., and Baghdad.