The Devil you don't know: Going back to Iraq by Zuhair el Jezairy

Six years into the war in Iraq and after more than twenty years of exile Zuhair el Jezairy delivers his account of his return back to his native Iraq. Upon his difficult arrival back home, the journalist and novelist observes the sheer madness of war overwhelming his country. In his narrative, he gives an emotional yet reflective account of his return and revives past memories of a leftist militancy and a forgotten cosmopolitan Baghdad. His journey, however, does not stop at mere observation as he becomes an editor for a newspaper and later sets up a television company that drives him to travel all around Iraq to document the dramatic repercussions of this war. The return is far from easy as his implication made him a target as well. El Jezairy thus conveys the destruction and unimaginable circumstances of the war as witnessed by a journalist but also the small pleasures that he regains in Iraq. His story is an enjoyable and fluid read and yet removed from the sensational writings of war zones.