A Hundred and One Days - Tapa dura

A riveting and wrenching account of a Norwegian journalist's experiences in Baghdad before, during and after the American invasion of Iraq. Seierstad (The Bookseller of Kabul, 2003) establishes a principle that dominates this powerful work: "The truth about the war in Iraq does not exist." Everyone lies. The Iraqi bureaucrats lie as the Americans prepare and launch their attacks; the Iraqi media broadcast and print stories that are patently false; the Americans lie about their objectives in the country. (The author reports many American soldiers saying the invasion is payback for 9/11.) Seierstad begins with her difficulties in Baghdad before the regime fell. She didn't speak the language; couldn't go anywhere without a "minder"; and repeatedly struggled to convince officials to let her remain. (Once, she was evicted but soon found her way back from Jordan.) But then she discovered a wonderful translator and guide, Aliya, who stayed with her until she left the country after the fall of Baghdad. When order disintegrated as the Americans approached, the author was able to get the stories she craved through interviews with ordinary Iraqis and visits to sites of damage and destruction-hospitals, marketplaces, schools-writing descriptions of what she saw that can require of the reader a steady eye and a calm stomach. Seierstad reproduces here, within the context of her narrative, a number of the actual stories she filed. Horrors were everywhere. American soldiers, she claims, targeted journalists and, unable to distinguish friend from foe, shot numerous civilians whose only offense was to fail to understand English. In Saddam City, later, she heard harrowing tales of families that had been decimated by the dictator's brutality. Looters now ran wild while Americans guarded the Oil Ministry. Dispatches scorched by the flames of battle and delivered by Seierstad, to enormous effect, in tense, crisp language. (Kirkus Reviews)

The best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul paints a stunning and intimate portrait of Baghdad under seige From January until April 2003 - a total on one hundred and one days - Asne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Baghdad for Scandinavian, German and Dutch media. Through her articles and live television coverage she reported on the events in Iraq before, during and after the attacks by American and British forces. But Seierstad was after a story far less obvious than the military invasion. From the moment she arrived in Baghdad Seierstad was determined to understand the modern secrets of an ancient place and to find out how the Iraqi people really live. In A Hundred and One Days, she introduces us to daily life under the constant threat of attack - first from the Iraqi government and later from American bombs. Moving from the deafening silence of life under Hussein to the explosions that destroyed the power supply, the water supply and security, Seierstad sets out to discover what people choose to say when they can suddenly say what they like, and what they miss most when their world changes overnight. Displaying the novelist's eye and lyrical story-telling that have won her awards around the world, Seierstad here brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters to tell the stories we never see on the evening news. The only woman in the world to cover both the fall of Kabul in 2001 and the bombing of Baghdad in 2003, Asne Seierstad has redefined war reporting with this mesmerizing book.