A Hundred and One Days [Hardcover]

Asne Seierstad (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2005

From January until April 2003—for one hundred and one days—Åsne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Bagdad for Scandinavian, German, and Dutch media. Through her articles and live television coverage she reported on the events in Iraq before, during, and after the attacks by the American and British forces.But Seierstad was after a story far less obvious than the military invasion. From the moment she arrived in Baghdad Seierstad was determined to understand the modern secrets of an ancient place and to find out how the Iraqi people really live. In A Hundred and One Days, she introduces us to daily life under the constant threat of attack—first from the Iraqi government and later from American bombs. Moving from the deafening silence of life under Hussein to the explosions that destroyed the power supply, the water supply, and security, Seierstad sets out to discover: What happens to people when the dam bursts? What do they choose to say when they can suddenly say what they like? What do they miss most when their world changes overnight?Displaying the novelist’s eye and lyrical storytelling that have won her awards around the world, Seierstad here brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters to tell the stories we never see on the evening news. The only woman in the world to cover both the fall of Kabul in 2001 and the bombings of Baghdad in 2003, Åsne Seierstad has redefined war reporting with her mesmerizing book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author of The Bookseller of Kabul, Norwegian journalist Seierstad spent 101 days in Baghdad before, during and after the initial coalition attacks in March 2003. She calls the articles she sent back to Europe "glimpses from the war," and weaves them into a brisk, present-tense narrative. The initial battles are with her official minders, always eager to steer her to sanctioned sites. With child psychologists, she sneaks out to explore the muddled terror and fantasy in Iraqi kids. A Finnish "human shield" professes no opinion of Saddam. A missile that hit a market renders scenes of blood and torment "too gruesome to publish." Every American soldier the author meets mentions 9/11, but there is no one Iraqi voice—she finds men joyful and resentful as they watch the fall of Saddam's statue, and finally able to report atrocities they witnessed. One constant is Aliya, Seierstad's interpreter, a loyal regime supporter who heroically shows up during the attacks, works mechanically after liberation to translate regime opponents' words and finally comes to some understanding of her country's past. While more ambitious narratives may provide more context, this is a valuable impressionistic portrait; it may lack the concentrated intimacy of The Bookseller of Kabul, but should backlist well as part of the tapestry of Iraq coverage. Agent, Diane Spivey.7-city author tour.(Apr. 11)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Seierstad writes about her stay as a reporter for Scandinavian, Dutch, and German media in Baghdad in the days before the war in Iraq through the fall of Baghdad. She describes her day-to-day efforts to try to report on the lives and thoughts of the people of Iraq while handicapped by the corrupt and powerful press-center employees, and constantly chaperoned by an interpreter and minder with whom she will have to "fawn, lie, and conceal." By being patient and skillful, she wades through the endless Bath party propaganda and reaches into the hearts and souls of the people: the 11-year-old who dreams about bombs falling on her family, the disgruntled restaurant worker who tells her that the walls have ears, and the people who try to care for their loved ones hurt in the bombing. She fearfully hunkers down in her hotel as the bombs fall, but then bravely slips out to watch a soccer game played in defiance of the bombing, to listen to press conferences announcing the successful exploits of the Iraqi army, and to watch the mayhem in the streets in the aftermath of the attacks. Seierstad puts a human face to and provides insight into the mosaic of the people of Iraq, the Bath party supporters, the dissidents, and the average person caught in the nightmare of the Saddam regime and the horrors of war.-Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Woodbridge, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; First American Edition edition (April 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465076009
• ISBN-13: 978-0465076000
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,108,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Journey to the Heart of Baghdad, January 13, 2006

By 

M. S. Bowden (Xiamen, China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Hundred and One Days (Hardcover)

Written after her well-known 'The Bookseller of Kabul', Seierstad provides the reader with a compelling account of the run up to, course of, and post war situation in Iraq. The book is as much about the author herself as it is about the people of Iraq. Thus, it is interesting on two levels: firstly as an insight into the life of a war correspondent, and secondly as an exploration of the effects of war on the population of Baghdad.

The book consists of three sections entitled 'Before', 'During' and 'After' respectively. Seierstad doesn't deal directly with the questions surrounding the morality of the Iraq war, but does what all good journalists should do - report the facts and events on the ground as she sees them. Inevitably though, Seierstad hints at her own feelings about the war, particularly when the harsh, blood-stained reality rears its ugly head.

Seierstad is also perceptive enough to have exposed those issues which the coalition forces did not grapple with before taking the decision to go to war; the potentially explosive Shia-Sunni rivalry and the growing influence of Islam. Indeed, the apocalyptic views expressed by some of the Baghdadis Seierstad meets regarding the aftermath of Saddam's overthrow have become eerily true since 2003.

Above all, this book shows that war is not only a destructive force for those directly involved, such as the citizens of Baghdad and the soldiers on both sides, but also for those who find themselves drawn into the war through choice - the war correspondents. Read it for a deeper understanding of what messrs Bush and Blair's 'War on Terror' does to those people who they insist need to be 'liberated' from tyranny.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What Went On In Iraq?, January 16, 2007

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (Paperback)

Asne Seierstad is a brave woman. In this book, she recounts her one hundred and one days in Iraq. The duration spans from before the American invasion/liberation, to a few days after the US "won" the war. Pre, during, and post.

Each of the three periods saw its share of hurdles, as Seierstad recalls with journalistic detail (but novelistic prose). Before the war, the trouble was finding a story at all. She was, at all times, to be accompanied by an interpreter who often served to censor who she could approach and what she could say while also intimidating the interviewee to bite their tongue. In a country where everyone says they love Saddam using the exact same slogans, how can one get a story?!

It is obvious the pitfalls of being smack-dab in the center of Baghdad during an American invasion. Seierstadt recounts her torn feelings about staying and leaving. On the one hand, an obligation to inform. On the other, an instinct towards self-preservation.

While she only stayed a few days into the aftermath of the US "victory," the trouble now was getting the story right. Some praised the US; some were angry at them. Most hated Saddam after all; a few extolled him. Instead of not having a story, the problem now was that everyone - with their new found freedom - could not wait to talk.

Seierstad recounts all of this in what feels somewhere between a personal interest story and a suspense novel. In between her recollection, she interfuses the pieces she wrote as a newspaper reporter. As she says many times throughout the book, her primary aim was to get at the human story behind the geopolitics. She does a good job of it.

This book was of particular interest to me because Seierstad gives an opportunity to get a (seemingly) unbiased glimpse of how Iraq really was and how people really felt about Saddam and the US (before and after the war). Whether you agree or disagree with the war, you will see things you haven't seen before - what day to day life was like in pre-war Iraq. And hopefully, it will get us all thinking about Iraq's future.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Brave Journalist, May 4, 2006

By 

H. Proulx "je lis, j'ecris" (Carmel, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (Hardcover)

Although this as not the caliber of Seierstad's THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL, this is still a strong piece of non-fiction. Seierstad is a Norwegian reporter who eventually ends up reporting for almost 8 news groups before, during, and after America's war in Iraq. Seierstad's tone is engaging, her writing clear concise and tight.

Perhaps the most interesting section of the book is the part entitled "Before," because when she first arrives, instead of interviewing people and getting them to tell her about their hate of the regime, she is made to go on "tourist" trips. She goes to Saddam's Art Centre, a museum that houses two floors devoted to the former Iraqi President. She interviews a man who only paints the President in different poses, a man that has memorized Saddam's face and can paint it by memory. When asked if he gets bored always painting the same subject he retorts, "Our president is a continuous source of inspiration," a reflection of the Iraqi attitude, or at least the required attitude of every Iraqi under Saddam.

Seierstad's interpreter Aliya is a true believer in Saddam and does not waver in her belief until after Baghdad has been taken and she is able to walk with Seierstad through Saddam's palace in Baghdad. An American soldier is their "tour guide" and grills Aliya with questions and then says, "Your president waltzed around under crystal chandeliers while you guys didn't ever have clean water!" Aliya only responded with "Hm." The night before Seierstad leaves Iraq, Aliya says, "People say he never cared about us...They say he only cared about himself."

Seierstad shows the fear under which the Iraqi people lived, their inability to contradict the decisions of their leader for fear of disappearing in the night. The discussion does not come full circle until the "After" section of the book in which people are finally able to speak openly, they are able to celebrate being able to contradict their neighbors in public and private. Certainly a tonal change in Iraq occurred after Saddam's regime collapsed. This book is great documentation of what it was like for one reporter to be in Baghdad during the deposition of Saddam.