The Orange Trees of Baghdad - In Search of My Lost Family

Born to an Iraqi-Christian father and a British mother, and raised in Britain and Canada, Leilah Nadir has never set foot on Iraqi soil. Distanced from her Iraqi roots through immigration and now cut off by war, the closest link she has to the nation is through her father, who left Baghdad in the 1960s when he was sixteen to pursue his studies in England. His Iraq is of mythical origins; his beginnings are in a garden at the family home that now lies vacant. Through her father’s memories, Leilah recounts her family’s lost story, from Iraq at the turn of the twentieth century during the British occupation, to the Iraq-Iran War and the Gulf War. Through her cousins still living in Baghdad, she experiences the thunderous explosions of the present-day conflict, and Leilah’s friend, award-winning photographer Farah Nosh, brings home news of Leilah’s family after her visits to Iraq, as well as stunning photos of civilians and their often tragic stories. The Orange Trees of Baghdad is at once harrowing, touching and painfully human. An unforgettable debut. Praise for Leilah Nadir: "Leilah Nadir’s The Orange Trees of Baghdad reminds us that Iraq is not just a war; it is a country. Lovingly woven together from inherited memory and family lore, her Iraq is infinitely more vivid, more textured, and more heartbreaking than what we see nightly on the news. In the debates about winning and losing the war, this is a book about what loss really means – the theft of history and of homeland." --Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine “Leilah Nadir’s insightful, searching story about her Iraqi roots, family, exile and survival, told in absorbing and moving language, reveals the great civilization now under assault and the human beings under perpetual blast, condemnation and bombardment.” —George Elliott Clarke, author of George & Rue “ The Orange Trees of Baghdad is a stunning book, the best I’ve read in the past year. Leilah Nadir takes us with her in her quest to meet the members of her family whose lives have been uprooted by war. In the process, we are drawn into the heart of the world’s most ancient civilization. In the haunting, dreamlike pages of this book, we discover that as Baghdad is destroyed, the roots of our own deepest past are being torn asunder. Hypnotically readable.” —James Laxer, author of The Border and The Acadians “A detailed exploration of life in Baghdad filtered through the voices and memories of the Iraqi diaspora.” —Devyani Saltzman, author of Shooting Water “A very finely written, deftly crafted work about Iraq that translates this epic disaster into human terms and makes us understand the endless suffering of its people. Touching, insightful and poignant.” —Eric Margolis, author of War at the Top of the World " In The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family (Key Porter), Leilah Nadir writes about a place she has never been to—a country her father last saw in 1960, when he left Iraq to go to school in England. By telling her story of exile, she is giving voice to so many émigrés who have been cut off from their past by war and insurrection." — Elle Canada September 2007