By September 2003, six months after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the anarchy had begun.
Rory Stewart, a young Biritish diplomat, was appointed as the Coalition Provisional Authority's deputy governor of a province of 850,000 people in the southern marshland region. There, he and his colleagues confronted gangsters, Iranian-linked politicians, tribal vendettas and a full Islamist insurgency.
Rory Stewart's inside account of the attempt to re-build a nation, the errors made, the misunderstandings and insumountable difficulties encountered, reveals an Iraq hidden from most foreign journalists and soldiers. Stewart is an award-winning writer, gifted with extraordinary insight into the comedy, occasional heroism and moral risks of foreign occupation.
'Beautifully written, highly evocative . . . a joy to read' John Simpson
'A marvellous book . . . a devastating narrative' Simon Jenkins
'Absolutely absorbing' Ken Loach
'Strikes gut and brain at once' James Meek
'Wonderfully observed, wise, evocative' Observer
Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia and Scotland. After a brief period in the British Army and the Foreign Office he walked 6,000 miles from Iraq to Nepal. His account of walking across Afghanistan, The Places In Between, was published by Picador in 2004, won the RSL Ondaatje Award, the Spirit Of Scotland Award, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and Scottish Book Of The Year. He was awarded an OBE in 2004.
