1001 Nights in Iraq

April 16, 2007
Kenderian, an Iraqi-American, traces his strange odyssey from American schoolboy to Iraqi soldier and U.S. prisoner of war in this unique and informative autobiography. Kenderian was a permanent U.S. resident when he traveled to Iraq in 1980 to visit his estranged father. While there, Saddam invaded Iran and closed the country's border, stranding Kenderian, who was eventually drafted into the Iraqi navy for three and a half years. After the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, recalling Kenderian to active duty before he could escape. When the landing craft he was on hit a mine in the Persian Gulf—ironically placed by his own unit—the survivors were picked up by an American frigate and the relieved Kenderian became a POW. Because of his flawless English, Kenderian was a favorite of his captors, worked informally as an interpreter and even became romantically involved with a female army reservist. After much diplomatic maneuvering, the self-described "man without a country" was granted "humanitarian parole" and returned to the U.S. Kenderian's decade-long ordeal is a bittersweet story, but after acknowledging his "really bad timing," he eschews the negative for an inspirational account of perseverance and survival.

August 27, 2007
Kenderian was on a brief trip to Iraq to visit his father in 1980 when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, and he was trapped under Saddam Hussein's rule until after the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. Being both an American and a Christian, Kenderian's harrowing experiences are recorded in careful detail, offering a compelling portrait of a nightmarish time. Collins splits the difference between plain-spoken English and precise pronunciation, choosing to primarily lean on the former and save the latter for Iraqi names and terminology. His voice is occasionally too normal-sounding, too placidly self-assured, to adequately convey the horror of Kenderian's story, but for the most part Collins gamely inhabits the grim world of 1980s Iraq. A simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 16).