Category: Photo Essay
Iraqi Refugees
Yesterday I discovered some interesting photographs of Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan posted on Slate. They were taken by Anna Husarska a policy adviser with the International Rescue Committee who does a lot of travel, reporting and photographing in the same places I do. Anna blogs, along with others, on Foreign Policy's AF-PAK Channel, which is a highly wonderful source of updates on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Foreign Policy's executive editor is the whip smart Susan Glasser, who used to work at the Washington Post when I did.
The IRC estimates there are about 4.2 million refugees from the seven year war in Iraq. Most are called Internally Displaced Persons. This means they're still in Iraq but have fled their original homes. Syria and Jordan have opened their borders to Iraqis--possibly as many as 1.5 million.
When I was in Jordan and Syria in October I met a number of Iraqi refugees. A key neighborhood for Iraqis is in southern Damascus near the Shia Shrine of Sayidda Zeinab. These were people who were living under less than salubrious circumstances. But I also learned that there were wealthy Iraqis who had fled to Amman and succeeded in being competitive business people. My Jordanian guide, for example, used to run a restaurant in Amman. He said an Iraqi family came and opened what he acknowledged was a better financed bistro in the same neighborhood. It put his restaurant out of business. I also had an interesting encounter with a pair of Iraqis walking in
Dubai
When I was researching The Room and the Chair I spent time in Dubai. The soul free zone that Dubai has become in the minds of most architects was part of the experience, as you can see from some of the photographs I took from one of my hotel rooms. Yet Dubai intrigued me more than it repelled. I've been fascinated by the Emirate's treatment of non-citizens--from India, Pakistan, Africa, etc.--to build their glittering domain. I've also noticed that Dubai had become the pleasure dome for people from a number of much more restrictive neighboring states--Iran, Saudi Arabia in particular. The exploitation, the ambition, the decadence--it felt richly interesting to me. So I wasn't surprised when I learned that Joseph O'Neill's next novel is tentatively titled Dubai.
Recently of course there's been almost daily news about the assassination of a Hamas operative in one of Dubai's hotel rooms. Today the London Telegraph reported that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh whom they call "a senior Hamas military commander" to emphasize his eligibility for assassination, was injected with a muscle relaxant and then smothered. I'm not sure anything we know right now gives us enough information to determine whether the assassination was legitimate, moral or legal.
For so long now people enjoy saying that non-fiction has novels beat. Reality, the old argument goes, can be so much more wild, strange, etc., than fiction. The Room and the Chair has a scene in a Dubai hotel room. An Iranian nuclear scientist is trying to hide in one under rather strange circumstances. (He's faked his death.) It's a product of my imagination, but the novel presents it as a fully realized set of scenes. The newspaper story of al-Mabhouh's death, however, has many missing pieces. The assumption is Mossad did it. The assumption is the 20 or so people caught on various surveillance cameras were involved. Robert Baer, a former CIA operative who writes books and pieces for The Atlantic and various other publications wrote this past weekend that these kinds of assassinations probably won't occur anymore because there's too many cameras. Yet i would argue that the insufficiency of the known facts in the assassination story argues for fiction's power. In a novel, the moral conundrums can be explored. In non-fiction, they remain suspended.
El Raval, Barcelona
Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe is nothing new. Yet I was surprised by the brazen way it worked in El Raval, a neighborhood right off the popular and crowded Gran Via in Barcelona. The residents have taken to hanging banners from their balconies that announce they want a "dignified" neighborhood. I found one banner festooned with drying laundry--underwear, to be exact. Irony in a sea of xenophobia.
Barcelona’s Jewish Quarter
In every city I visit in Europe I go see the Jewish Quarter. In Barcelona, it's tiny, hidden deep inside The Gothic Quarter. In 1391, a riot killed about 1,000 residents. In 1401 they were expelled completely. The first night I arrived, a friend took us strolling through the narrow medieval streets. Eduardo Hojman, who is originally from Argentina, lived in a stone house in the the Call (the Spanish name for the Jewish quarter) that was rumored to be the oldest house in all of Barcelona. The Irish novelist Colm Toibin lived in the same house, and according to Hojman, Toibin called the oldest house claim bullshit. What interested me was that a synagogue exists in the catacombs beneath the house. The synagogue was built on Roman ruins, which have been excavated and covered in glass floors.
Chapter 18 - To Exercise my Depleted Fury
This is a feature on my blog that I thought might be interesting for readers of The Room and the Chair. Because my novels are reported creations, they begin as travel expeditions. Early on they morphed into photography safaris. I started taking pics as a way of taking notes. But some of the photographs got into my imagination so forcefully they became scenes in the novel. I wanted to share the images that inspired passages in the novel. If you haven't read the novel, these photo essays will be mighty confusing. For those who do read it, I hope it won't mar the way you picture the scenes in your head.
Five: Edited Scenes of Adventure
These photos depict scenes from chapter five. "The funeral included religious and social events at various locations. He was most curious about those at the cemetery."