Book Description
Born to an Iraqi-Christian father and a British mother, and raised in Britain and Canada, Leilah Nadir has never set foot on Iraqi soil. Distanced from her Iraqi roots through immigration and now cut off by war, the closest link she has to the nation is through her father, who left Baghdad in the 1960s when he was sixteen to pursue his studies in England. He never looked back, until now, through his daughter's journey to uncover her lost family roots.
Her father’s most vivid memory is of the garden at the family house: the rosebushes that lined the walls, the date palm that intermingled with the palm fronds, and the orange tree that hung over the roses. His Iraq is of mythical origins; his beginnings are in a garden. But through her cousins still living in Baghdad she experiences the thunderous explosions that continuously rain down upon the country today, and describes losing their great-aunt in the terrifying aftermath of the invasion. Leilah's friend, photographer Farah Nosh, brings home news of Leilah's family after her visits to Iraq, as well as stunning photos of civilians and their often tragic stories. And just as Leilah gives up hope of ever meeting her family, a surprise reunion takes place.
The Orange Trees of Baghdad is at once harrowing, touching and painfully human. An unforgettable debut.
Praise For The Orange Trees of Baghdad
“Leilah Nadir’s The Orange Trees of Baghdad reminds us that Iraq is not just a war; it is a country. Lovingly woven together from inherited memory and family lore, her Iraq is infinitely more vivid, more textured, and more heartbreaking than what we see nightly on the news. In the debates about winning and losing the war, this is a book about what loss really means—the theft of history and of homeland.”
NAOMI KLEIN, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine
“A very finely written, deftly crafted work about Iraq that translates this epic disaster into human terms and makes us understand the endless suffering of its people. Touching, insightful and poignant.”
ERIC MARGOLIS, author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet
“A detailed exploration of life in Baghdad filtered through the voices and memories of the Iraqi diaspora.”
DEVYANI SALTZMAN, author of Shooting Water
“Leilah Nadir’s insightful, searching story about her Iraqi roots, family, exile, and survival, told in absorbing and moving language, reveals the great civilization now under assault and the human beings under perpetual blast, condemnation, and bombardment.”
GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE
“The Orange Trees of Baghdad is a stunning book, the best I’ve read in the past year. Leilah Nadir takes us on her quest to meet the members of her family whose lives have been uprooted by war. In the process, we are drawn into the heart of the world’s most ancient civilization. In the haunting, dreamlike pages of this book, we discover that as Baghdad is destroyed, the roots of our own deepest part are being torn asunder. Hypnotically readable.”
JAMES LAXER, author of The Border and The Acadians