Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad is a collection of emails between the two authors which came about under some odd circumstances. Bee Rowlatt is a journalist for the BBC World Service and as part of this job in early 2005 she was contacting people in Iraq to discuss the aftermath of the US invasion. May Witwit, a lecturer at an all female English college in Baghdad, was one of the people she contacted and after the interview was over they remained in touch and became close friends- all via email. The two women talk about lives and the contrast between Rowlatt's life as a suburban London mother of three (the youngest of which was born during the time of their email correspondence so Rowlatt spends some of the book on maternity leave) and Witwit as a lecturer in a war torn country where she and husband are often woken by bombs and there are death threats being levelled at academics, people who are of Sunni not Shi'ite descent (like her husband) and women who opt not to wear long sleeves and an hijab in the streets and who drive themselves to work (like she does). Very quickly the tone of the emails moves beyond just the simple sharing of lives and the two women start working on a plan to get Witwit and her husband out of Iraq.
As someone who was strongly opposed to the US invasion of Iraq (don't get me wrong, Saddam needed to go but this wasn't the best way), it was fascinating to read the post-invasion opinions of someone in Baghdad. I picked this book as one for the Novel Challenge on a whim and was a little worried that, even though it was a true story, parts of it might to a bit too chick-lit for my liking and that it might downplay the effects of the war. It doesn't and the lives of both of these women are quite intriguing. Both women are very genuine and honest in their correspondence and even for the sections of the book when Rowlatt is a housewife, both are very focused on the importance of both work and family. The scars of the invasion will clearly be with Iraq for a very long time and Witwit spends a lot of her emails attempting to reconcile her dislike of the old regime and the fact that life under the new regime is actually often worse for the day-to-day lives of many ordinary Iraqis. Though the war and its after effects linger on, the news stations of the world have begun to forget about it (except when a coalition soldier is killed) and this book is strong reminder to the West that all these years after Bush Jr declared the war over, it still rages on the streets of Baghdad (granted the book ends in 2008 but I'm sure much of what it describes is still going on). It is an enlightening read and reminded me that the reality of war as told by those experiencing it directly conveys the situation with so much more poignancy than fiction ever could. I was somewhat reminded of both The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary (you may not heard of the second one but it was one of my favourite books in the latter years of primary school, it is the diary of a girl in Sarajevo during the war in Balkans in the early 90s), however though I would recommend both of those books to teens (in particular teen girls) this is very much for adults and I think women in particular should find themselves a copy.
On a side note, this book would largely not have been possible without the work on a brilliant charity organisation that I had not previously been aware of. The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) helps academics who are forced to flee their homelands following a government crack down and/or massacre of academics. It was founded to assist academics in 1930s who were fleeing fascist regimes in Europe and nowadays it is doing a lot of good work in Iraq. For more info check out their website- http://www.academic-refugees.org/ . Yes I know I'm plugging for MS Australia with this Novel Challenge but as a possible future academic, I can't help but give CARA some publicity.
I'm now starting on something completely different and not on my original list of books- Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey.
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