Riverbend, the young Iraqi woman whose "articulate, even poetic prose
packs an emotional punch," continues her blog from her hometown of
Baghdad (The New York Times).
Riverbend, the pseudonymous recipient of a Lettre Ulysses Award for the
Art of Literary Reportage, continues her chronicle of daily life in
occupied Baghdad. Drawn from her popular blog, this volume spans from
October 2004 through March 2006.
In her distinctively wry yet urgent prose Riverbend, now 27, tells of
life in a middle-class, secular, mixed Shia-Sunni family. She describes
the attacks she sees on TV, raids in her neighborhood, fuel shortages,
rolling blackouts, and water shortages, all while offering insightful
critiques of the Iraqi draft constitution and American Media. Riverbend
reveals how, for the first time in her life, she feels lesser due to her
gender.
Dispelling reductive, media-driven stereotypes, she explains that most
Iraqis are tolerant people, prefer secular to religious government,
oppose a civil war, and desperately want the occupation to end.