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Silent Exodus: Portraits of Iraqi Refugees in Exile

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Silent Exodus: Portraits of Iraqi Refugees in Exile
I ordered this book because it was a recommendation by Amazon.com, listing the author as Khaled Hosseini. Although I had not read anywhere that Mr. Hosseini had been releasing a new book - such an event would be big news in the literary circles - I thought that maybe I had missed it in the book review sections and other places that announce such news. Anticipating another masterpiece in the vein of "Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", I did not expect to get a photo-journal, and not a particularly good one, with a very short, very general introduction, by Mr. Hosseini in his role as UNHCR ambassador.

This is a blatant bait and switch tactic by Amazon.com, which I frankly used to hold to a higher standard. As you can see from the product link above, there is no "Search Inside" for this book, so I could not find out beforehand what I was buying. I have to be more careful about Amazon.com's recommendations from now on.

The book needs this bait and switch tactic to sell, as it cannot sell on its own merit. It is full of pictures of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and other host countries that are not very graphic or heart rending. They seem to be people who are living the normal life of the vast majority of the inhabitants of their host countries. The dialogs accompanying each set of pictures are disjointed from them. There is absolutely no doubt about the enormity of the human suffering faced daily by these displaced people. However, one does not feel the refugees' plight from these pictures and the associated dialog. This is nothing like the pictures of the African refugees that you see in even in daily papers.

The problems of the Iraqi refugees are enormous, their plight truly one of the greatest tragedies of the new century. It deserves better representation than this book.

I received this book today and sat down and read through it. Don't be mistaken, it is not long and it is almost completely pictures. "A picture is worth a thousand words." Never more true has it been than when I sat down with this book. My wife started to read this and had to stop due to the graphic nature of some of the pictures. In addition, almost all of the written text in the book is directly quoted from people who were interviewed. There truly isn't a way to explain what is being said through any other words.

Ultimately this book will do many things, be that infuriate you, inspire you, or simply make you want to cry. Recommend reading this book and deciding for yourself.

Zalmaļ Ahad (professionally known simply as Zalmaļ) is responsible for shaking the world's attention to the plight of refugees in this stunning portfolio of photographs of Iraqis displaced from their fatherland to seek refuge from the war that has torn their country to shreds. Zalmaļ is no stranger to the tragedies that befall immigrants. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan but fled to Switzerland when the Russian troops invaded Afghanistan in 1980. He identifies with the homeless of the world as he has documented in his other monographs. In SILENT EXODUS: Portraits of Iraqi Refugees in Exile he concentrates on black and white dramatic images of people, of destroyed landscapes and destroyed hopes and lives and the result is a book of images that will burn into our thoughts the truths of how futile and cruel is war.

Zalmaļ has said 'I capture the beauty of suffering. That's the art of photography. It has to be beautiful to make people want to turn the page. I wanted to tell the story of a renaissance, and also of how it will be buried.' Currently he is working on a group of images that focus on the Afghanistan tragedy, a situation that persists despite all the monies that are supposedly spent on sending help to this war ravaged country. Doubtless there will be another monograph on that subject (he has published two other books in addition to SILENT EXODUS - 'Return Afghanistan' and 'Eclipse'), but until that time this heartrending selection of images of people whose only possession is hope stands as a reminder of Zalmaļ's commitment to alert the world of the sequelae of war in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. It is difficult not to be moved to action after 'reading' these images - and the very brief but touching commentary by Khaled Hosseini. Grady Harp, September 09

I purchased this book as a Christmas present, but I did glance through it and was impressed with the photography and the sadness. Zalmai is an artist!

finally a book that speaks about Iraqi refugees and their plight since the invasion of '03