Publisher’s Weekly on IRAQIGIRL:
IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq. Haymarket (Consortium, dist.), $13 paper ISBN 978-1-931859-73-8
In 2004 in Mosul (the third largest city in Iraq), a 15-year-old girl started a blog detailing her life in the midst of the Iraq War. Her journal encompasses the day-to-day trauma the American invasion has caused her city, her family and friends. “Today is like every day in Iraq. No electricity, no fun, and no peace,” writes Hadiya (all Iraqi names in the book are pseudonyms). Her struggle against helplessness is agonizing, though her view modulates somewhat over time (her blog is still active, but the book covers her writings only through 2007). “I sense that my country is still beautiful in spite of everything that has happened to it,” she says during a hopeful moment. Poems and photographs accompany her thoughts on her academic struggles, Islam and growing up in a war zone; comments from her blog are interspersed, and Hadiya responds to others in several entries (“Another anonymous said, ‘You certainly don’t deserve this life.’ I want to ask you something—is this really a life?”). Hadiya’s authentically teenage voice, emotional struggles and concerns make her story all the more resonant. Ages 12–up. (July)
If you happen to be in the San Francisco area this week, please consider heading to Modern Times independent bookstore this Thursday, July 30, at 7 PM. IRAQIGIRL’s developer (i.e., the guy who discovered the IraqiGirl blog, had the idea to make it into a book, and assembled the initial manuscript), and former human shield in Baghdad, John Ross, will be talking about how the book came to be and reading some selections.
And now having shamelessly promoted the book, I’m going to even more shamelessly brag on behalf of the press publishing it. Here’s Library Journal, post-ALA:
Small presses, big books
Essays by Arundhati Roy and Wallace Shawn, plus reflections on the contemporary world by Noam Chomsky and Breyten Breytenbach. Top picks from a big New York house, right? Wrong. These authors are all being published this fall by Chicago-based Haymarket Press, truly a small press that thinks big and my top find of the convention. Roy’s Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (Sept.) argues that Hindu nationalism and economic reform are thwarting India’s democratic efforts, turning the country into a police state. Shawn’s Essays (Sept.), his first collection and ranging over his entire career, move from the act of playwriting to considerations of privilege, while Breytenbach’s Notes from the Middle World (Nov.) considers the artist’s role in a shrinking global environment. Chomsky’s Hopes and Prospects ponders political activism in the Western Hemisphere.
And now I am going to stop bragging. For this week, anyway! Real posts coming up.
Posted in Book Business, IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq
gorgeous cover.
That’s really pretty, Elizabeth. You must be so proud!
Thanks! I can’t wait to see it for real… I’ve had a galley since early May, but we actually substantially improved it from the galley, so I haven’t seen it in its real form. I think I’ll have it in just two weeks… craziness!
Apropos of Susan’s comment on the other thread, if anyone has ideas they want to suggest for publicity, please let me know! I do want to run a contest (and maybe a blog tour — have ideas for lots of posts), and the guy who developed the manuscript, John Ross, is doing a book event in San Francisco on July 30. I’d like to do some book events too, because when I was editing, I kept imagining what a great presentation you could do with this material, including her photographs (which we put in the book) — I think you do really get a sense of the war through this kind of personal experience that’s different from what you can get any other way.
But as I said, I’m only really thinking about this now, because we were editing down to the wire. (Obviously the press has its own publicity department that has been thinking about this, but I want to contribute to the publicity efforts too.) So, any and all suggestions very welcome!
That is a beautiful cover. Congrats. When does it go on sale?
Thanks, Doret! I believe it goes on sale next month but I’m not sure of the launch date, if you can believe it. (We were focusing everything around July 30, when there’s a bookstore event in San Francisco, so I forgot to even ask when it’ll be on sale elsewhere!) I’ll find out.
Looks wonderful!
love the cover. it is so pretty….
Thanks, hungryreader! (love the name, btw)
I was very, very happy when I saw it. I don’t know the woman who designed it, but I owe her one.
John Ross is reading this book tonight at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco (the Mission district). I also went to the publisher’s site and found the book on sale there for $18:
http://www.haymarketbooks.org/advanced_search_result.php?search_in_description=1&x=33&y=8&keywords=iraqigirl&osCsid=bba6c060e5a3f561c69175ae576d1a56&x=35&y=13