U.S. reporter's Iraq saga wins top non-fiction prize

[Barrett808]

Source: Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - An American reporter's account of the surreal world inside Baghdad's top security Green Zone was named on Monday as winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, billed as the world's richest award for non-fiction.

The 30,000 pound ($60,000) prize was given to the Washington Post's former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran for his "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," which took readers into a bubble of startling Americana.

"Imperial Life in the Emerald City is up there with the greatest reportage of the last 50 years - as fine as (John) Hershey on Hiroshima and (Truman) Capote's In Cold Blood," said Helena Kennedy, chairwoman of the judges.

"The writing is cool, exact and never overstated and in many places very humorous as the jaw-dropping idiocy of the American action is revealed," she added in praising the book that was drawn from hundreds of interviews and internal documents.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070618/us_nm/iraq_prize_dc

[Lisa]

1. oh, good! I thought that book was excellent ...

I would love to re-read it, but my boss scooped it off my desk!

[alfredo]

2. It's one of three books I recommend to friends and family.

The other two are "Imperial Hubris" and "Conservatives Without Conscience."

[LynnTheDem]

3. "jaw-dropping idiocy of the American action"

Yep, that it is.

[freefall]

4. Coincidentally, I just started reading it last night. It is very well written.

Easy to see why it merits this prize. Still it's hard to read about such idiocy when you know what an unbelievably high price is being paid for it. Rumsfeld should hang.

Peace,
freefall