Baghdad Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew

About this book

Cultural writing. Middle East Studies. Biography and Memoir. A wise and often gently funny memoir by one of the worlds authorities on Arabic literature this book offers an intimate view of Jewish life in Baghdad in the 1930s and 40s. It describes vividly the young writers intellectual and emotional growth and maps the now-vanished world of Baghdads book stalls and literary cafes its Arabic-speaking Jewish bank clerks tuxedoed Iraqi-Jewish weddings outdoor movies at the Cinema Diana and bonfires by the Tigris. As the pieces of Somekhs unsentimental and sharply drawn memoir accumulate they also mount in meaning "It is hard to overstate the beauty originality lucidity gentleness wisdom and importance of Baghdad Yesterday"--Maariv.