Description:
A graphic memoir recounting the author's childhood in Iraq and his experiences during the Iraq War and its aftermath from 1989 to 2011.
Brief description: Born in France to Iraqi parents, Feurat Alani is an award-winning journalist and novelist. He was a news correspondent in Baghdad from 2003 to 2008 for Télé (now CNews), Ouest France, La Croix, and Le Point. In 2008, Alani returned to Paris to work on the television newsmagazine L'Effet papillon. He is the cofounder of the production companies Baozi Prod and In Sight Films. Alani collaborates regularly with the newspaper Le Monde diplomatique, the website Orient XXI, and the magazine Géo, and works as a reporter and producer with Arte, France 24, and Canal+. The Flavors of Iraq was originally published as Le Parfum d'Irak in 2018 and went on to win the Prix Albert Londres for the best book in 2019.
Review Quotes:
"The gulf between the American perception of our war and the Iraqi experience of it is as wide as the Anbar desert. And for too long, American cultural products on the war have offered us a mirror, rather than a bridge, reflecting our own self-image back to us. But now we have a bridge. It's there, if you care to look. On the other side awaits something new, a way of seeing and thinking that might be unfamiliar and challenging. But it's real. If you care to look, The Flavors of Iraq is the human story that we were never meant to see."
--Ross Caputi