Focusing on contemporary Iranian life, the book combines travel writing, historical analysis, and personal interviews to offer a nuanced perspective on a nation often misrepresented in the West. Christiane Bird, who has personal ties to Iran, sheds light on its rich culture, breaking a long-standing silence surrounding it. This work serves as an essential resource for understanding the complexities of Iranian society, moving beyond the political narrative to reveal the everyday experiences of its people.
Though the Kurds played a major military and tactical role in the United States’ recent war with Iraq, most of us know little about this fiercely independent, long-marginalized people. Now acclaimed journalist Christiane Bird, who riveted readers with her tour of Islamic Iran in Neither East Nor West, travels through this volatile part of the world to tell the Kurds’ story, using personal observations and in-depth research to illuminate an astonishing history and vibrant culture. For the twenty-five to thirty million Kurds, Kurdistan is both an actual and a mythical place: an isolated, largely mountainous homeland that has historically offered sanctuary from the treacherous outside world and yet does not exist on modern maps. Parceled out among the four nation-states of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran after World War I, Kurdistan is a divided land with a tragic history, where the indomitable Kurds both celebrate their ancient culture and fight to control their own destiny. Occupying some of the Middle East’s most strategic and richest terrain, the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the region and the largest ethnic group in the world without a state to call their own. Whether dancing at a Kurdish wedding in Iran, bearing witness to the destroyed Kurdish countryside in southeast Turkey, having lunch with a powerful exiled agha in Syria, or visiting the sites of Saddam Hussein’s horrific chemical attacks in Iraq, the intrepid, insightful Bird sheds light on a violently stunning world seen by few Westerners. Part mesmerizing travelogue, part action-packed history, part reportage, and part cultural study, this critical book offers timely insight into an unknown but increasingly influential part of the world. Bird paints a moving and unforgettable portrait of a people uneasily poised between a stubborn past and an impatient future.
Christiane Bird beschreibt ihre Erlebnisse in Kurdistan als magisch und tragisch. Als Journalistin erkundet sie das Leben der Kurden, die über mehrere Länder verteilt sind. Sie verbindet persönliche Schicksale mit politischem und historischem Hintergrund und vermittelt ein lebendiges Bild einer Kultur, die in vielen Herzen existiert.
