Justin Marozzi

Angry Young Seyyed

Occupational Hazards

By

Picador 320pp £17.99 order from our bookshop

The last adventure Rory Stewart wrote about was his walk across Afghanistan. This time, in Iraq, his aim is more ambitious. He is working for the Foreign Office, as representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in the southern province of Maysan.

‘My mission’, he writes, ‘was to create “a democratic Iraq at peace with itself and with its neighbours” or in the jargon popular in Baghdad, “a multi-ethnic, decentralised, prosperous state, based on human rights, a just constitution, a vibrant civil society and the rule of law”.’ He acknowledges that this seems a little overambitious.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'It would be nice to think that women will achieve equal pay in my lifetime, rather than to watch gloomily as stati… ,
    • In 1660, two of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant fled across the Atlantic to New England. But were… ,
    • Howard Jacobson's sixteenth novel is 'a love story of sorts, one characterised not by physical desire or even conta… ,
    • 'The sudden immersion in the new and unfamiliar can lead people to write with a rare lack of self-consciousness' P… ,
    • 'Pools bend the rules. Clothes slip off, skin glistens, consciousness heightens. A dreamlike scenario unfolds' Jam… ,
    • 'Although he surely didn’t know W H Auden’s theory that every high C proclaims human freedom and our capacity to tr… ,
    • RT : With beginning tomorrow, we've uncovered a 1997 article from the archive reviewing 'Golf Dream… ,
    Follow Us