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Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan
7.4.2007 |
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Joanna
Al-Askari Is A Kurd; Her Story, The Story Of The
Kurdish People In Iraq Now Told in New Book - Love
In A Torn Land
April 7, 2007
Joanna Al-Askari and her husband Sarbast were two of
the thousands of Kurdish victims gassed by the
infamous Chemical Ali. Sick and temporarily blinded
by the onslaught, Joanna survives this attack and
others. She is now able to share her amazing story
in a new biography by best-selling author Jean
Sasson, Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan.
Hoboken, NJ, April 7, 2007 -- "These
artillery shells were different. Once airborne, they
fell silently, puffing up dirty white clouds. I
continued watching the strange spectacle, my mouth
dry with anxiety, not letting my imagination go to
the worse scenario. Perhaps the silent canisters
were harmless?"
The Kurds knew the attacks would come. They had
grown used to the severity, seen the brutality, felt
the sting of shrapnel. But on this day in 1987,
Joanna Al-Askari and her husband Sarbast were two of
the thousands of Kurdish victims gassed by the
infamous Chemical Ali. |
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Sick and temporarily blinded by the onslaught,
Joanna survives this attack and others. She is now
able to share her amazing story in a new biography
by best-selling author Jean Sasson, Love in a Torn
Land: Joanna of Kurdistan.
Joanna's journey begins in Baghdad. The daughter of
a beautiful Kurdish woman and a deaf Arab engineer,
early in life Joanna identifies with her Kurdish
heritage. Yet as she grows, she begins to understand
that the life of a Kurdish Iraqi is not an easy one.
Joanna's uncle was arrested and tortured in 1962 for
the crime of being a Kurd. He would never fully
recover. In Joanna's youth, her older brother and
brother-in-law would suffer similar fates. Arrested
and imprisoned after committing no crime, they were
held in underground pits. Beating the odds, they
both survive only to pay a visit to the notorious
Abu Ghraib Prison. The brutal suppression of those
she loves along with gruesome accounts of atrocities
like the massacre on Martyrs Hill, where young Kurds
were buried up to their necks and mowed down with
tanks, contribute to Joanna's sense of outrage and
determination to resist.
Fueled by these injustices, the young Joanna dreams
of becoming a Kurdish freedom fighter--a Peshmerga.
When she meets and marries a handsome young Kurdish
Peshmerga, Sarbast Hussain, Joanna's dream becomes
reality.
Love in a Torn Land describes Joanna's wedding
without a groom and her journey into Kurdistan to
join her beloved husband. The journey is dangerous,
but she perseveres on her chosen path. She will
survive the bombs, the chemical attacks, the brutal
day-to-day existence and the loss of those she
loves. She will flee when chased and return to fight
again. As we follow Joanna through Sasson's riveting
narrative, a granite character emerges: Joanna is a
Kurd and a Peshmerga, and a survivor.
For readers numbed by the brutality in the headlines
every day, Joanna's story gives this important and
oft-overlooked piece of Iraqi history a face and a
voice. Jean Sasson elegantly balances horrifying
stories of unfathomable hatred with moving vignettes
of the passion of an unlikely romance and inspiring
tales of Joanna's determination to fight this
historic injustice.
Part investigative reporting, part feminist
biography, and part romance, Love in a Torn Land
captures the complexity of life as a woman in one of
the most war-torn regions of the world.
Jean Sasson is the author of the New York Times
bestseller Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the
Veil in Saudi Arabia as well as two sequels to that
book and Mayada: Daughter of Iraq. She is also the
author of The Rape of Kuwait, a powerful first -hand
chronicle of the Kuwaiti experience in the days
after the Iraqi invasion of 1990, for which Sasson
gained unusual access to Kuwaitis from all walks of
life, from ordinary citizens stranded inside the
country during the occupation to the highest members
of the Kuwaiti royal family. Sasson has appeared on
Oprah, the Today show, 48 Hours, Imus in the
Morning, CNN, and NPR.
Joanna Al-Askari will be available for print and
broadcast interviews upon the release of the book.
Jean Sasson will also be available for print and
broadcast interviews and will accompany Joanna on
all radio interviews.
For more information on Love in a Torn Land and/or
to schedule an interview with Joanna Al-Askari
and/or Jean Sasson, please contact Mike Onorato at
Wiley.
Title: Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan, By
Jean Sasson
Author: Jean Sasson
Publisher: Wiley
Format: 6 ⅛"x 9 ¼" hardcover, 322 pages, 32 B&W
photographs
Retail Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-470-06729-1
AMZAON- To obtain a copy of Love in a Torn Land: Joanna of Kurdistan, By Jean Sasson
prweb com
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