Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi

by Salam Pax

Book Overview

Salam Pax has attracted a huge worldwide readership for the Internet diary he kept during the buildup, prosecution, and aftermath of the war in Iraq. Bringing his incisive and sharply funny Web postings together in print for the first time, Salam Pax provides one of the most gripping accounts of the Iraq conflict and will be the subject of global media attention. In September 2002, twenty-nine-year-old Iraqi architect calling himself "Salam Pax" began...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802140440
• ISBN13: 9780802140449
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

not a baathist

obviously the individual who wrote a previous review on Pax's baathist links is the type of moron who skips over a books introduction... please take the time to read this excerpt: "...Those who thought his blog was unduly critical of Iraq's `liberators' made dark insinuations about his parents' Baathist connections. Eventually Salam blew his top, advising his detractors to `go play Agatha Christie somewhere else.' His mother, he said, had been a sociologist at the Ministry of Education, but had given up her job when she was told she could not make progress in her career without becoming a Party member. His father had been an eminent economist, but had made a similar decision when faced with the same choice. `You are being disrespectful to the people who have put the first copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in my hands . . . go fling the rubbish at someone else.' In fact, the conspiracy theorists' preoccupation with his family's supposed regime connections misses one of the most compelling attributes of Salam's diaries: he directs his vitriol in all directions. In the last days of the war he managed to describe the Fedayeen, the Baathist loyalists mounting a guerilla defence of Baghdad in the space of two paragraphs as `sickos', `chicken s**t' and `creepy f**s'. If he has been less than reverential about Iraq's occupiers, he has been harder still on their Iraqi critics..."

next best thing to a trip to Baghdad-and funnier

What is going on in people's minds while the politicians and leaders use their own peculiar vocabularies to justify whatever?Salam, thank you, thank you for letting an Iowan get a view without the doublespeak.Not many people could give the absurdities that end in bombs and invasion the kind of authentic black humor that Salam does. I laughed out loud a lot. The book reminds me of "Catch 22" despite the differences of culture, author's voice, time and place.Salam is the author with whom I'd most like to have coffee. Or wine-he can pick. I'll pick up the bill.oh, p.s. for you nitpickers about the title ordinary: If a bomb had killed Salam, I bet his name would have been collateral damage.read this book.

Peace, please. And Salam for president!

I've been reading Salam's blog since before the war started, and continue to do so-- he is certainly no "ordinary Iraqi"-- His written English is better than 99% of Americans, his knowledge of Western popular culture is mind-boggling, and his snide digs at posturing of all kinds is world class. His genius brings us the gift of perspective and complexity in a situation reduced by American television to sound bytes and simple images. Salam shares not only his political views but his opinions on music, pop culture and the absurdities of life in general, with the result that I now have someone in Iraq who I connect with intellectually and emotionally, who I worry about, think of, pray for. Not an American soldier (bless them too), but a citizen of Iraq who wishes for both peace and freedom, and who is deeply ambivalent about what is happening there. Salam proves the saying that the "pen is mightier than the sword." No "ordinary Iraqi," indeed, but an extraordinary world citizen writing us missives from a surreal position. Write on, Salam. And be safe.

Everyone ought to read this book!

I just finished this and it is wonderful! Salam not only talks about the devistation of his city and the hopes and fears he has of the future. Such topics would be interesting and worthwhile. But his discussions of music, tv shows, and the humor he maintains in the face of depressing scenes makes this book a great read.

Good stuff

Salam is a fine and witty writer, and reading his dispatches is like having a friend in Baghdad. From many thousands of miles distant the war is reduced for us to a political issue; hearing it from Salam makes it immediately a story of human concerns. If you want a perspective from outside the American political power struggle over the Iraq war, from someone intimately affected, check this book out. Salaam says on his blog today that he doesn't like the title on this edition, I second that but obviously it doesn't change the worthwhileness of the contents.