- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Halban Publishers; New edition edition (26 Jun 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1870015851
- ISBN-13: 978-1870015851
- Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 3.4 x 19.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 821,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Lina is trying to lead a normal girl's life in Baghdad, but being Jewish in an Arab country is not easy as politics keep intruding. Violent government coups are almost annual events and it's difficult for a child to understand what's going on or who to believe. The need for secrecy means Lina cannot tell her best friend that her family is just waiting for the right moment to flee. It is the 1960s and Lina is part of the dwindling Jewish community
From the Publisher
At a ceremony at the Arts Club in London, 2001, Mona Yahia won the Jewish Quarterly/Wingate Prize for fiction for her novel. The 4000 pound prize is given annually to an author of a work of literary merit, which stimulates an interest and awareness of themes of Jewish concern amongst a wider reading public.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
enlightening + highly poetical book for multiple readings!,
By A Customer
This review is from: When The Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad (Hardcover)
Mona Yahia tells an exitng story about the secrets of growing up in a world unknown to, as I may assume, not only to me but to most Western readers. Set in Baghdad in the 1960s, it may well be the first novel focusing on Jewish life in Iraq shortly before the extinction of the oldest Jewish community in the world. The author thus continues a literary heritage of internationally acclaimed authors like Sami Michael and Eli Amir. For the Western reader, the novel provides many insights about the plight of a relogious/culturel minority under one of the harshest dictatorships in recent history. Though the story provides plenty of the odeur, the light, the sounds and the heat of the orient, it clearly refuses to feed a romantic view of this part of the world, which continues to be perceived - in journalism and in fiction - through a veil of Werstern projections. At the same time the author succeeds in describing a process of individual growth within the context of historical events and finds in language a field of creation as well as self-determination: while Mona Yahias style seems to reflect the richness that language can provide, Lina, the main character, discovers its reduction as a tool for freedom ... I enjoyed WHEN THE GREY BEETLES TOOK OVER BAGHDAD thoroughly as a first reading! - It's one of the rare books to which I look forward to reading again!
4.0 out of 5 stars
When the Grey Beetles Took over Baghdad,
By
This review is from: When The Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad (Paperback)
The book reads like a short autobiography, written in a style I am unaccustomed to read. The authoress's powers of observation, or imagination, are superb and liven up a tale of religious suppression, from childhood to near adulthood.
There are surely countless books on the subject Jewish persecution, here is one refreshingly different, through the eyes of a girl. The end left me `hanging' there surely must be a sequel.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read - evocative and thoughtful.,
By A Customer
This review is from: When The Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad (Hardcover)
A very absorbing picture of a young person's experiences during an eventful period in recent middle-east history. I read it all in two sessions.
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