The Weight of a Mustard Seed
The Intimate Life of an Iraqi Family During Thirty Years of Tyranny
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On Sale:
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02/03/2009
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Formats:
Hardback
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General Kamel Sachet was a favourite of Saddam Hussein’s, a hero of the
Iran-Iraq war, head of the army in Kuwait City during Desert Storm and the
governor of the province of Maysan. But when it came time for his sons to do
their military service, he refused to let them join the “criminal” organization
that he had given his life to. Sachet realized, too late, that he had become a
participant in the terror regime that had strangled his country and destroyed
its people.
Through the story of Kamel Sachet and those around him—his
wife; his sons and daughters; his friend, a psychiatrist; the head of the
Republican Guard; a director of Abu Ghraib prison—Wendell Steavenson shows the
choices Iraqis have had to make between exile and collaboration, God and jihad.
In the spirit of The Bookseller of Kabul and Stasiland, The
Weight of a Mustard Seed captures the universal humanity and the tragedy of
unintended consequences.
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Author Extras
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Critical Praise for
The Weight of a Mustard Seed
“Anything but a travelogue. . . . A very gifted writer.”
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Neal Ascherson, The Observer (UK) on Stories I Stole
“A sparkling, poetical hymn to the most romantic and dangerous land in the
world.”
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Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin on Stories I Stole
“Steavenson is a talented writer and her reconstruction of Sachet’s story is
staggering in its revelation of a collective psychological trauma that continues
to grip a nation.”
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Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Absolutely fascinating—part treatise on evil, part journey through war-torn
Iraq looking for “flickers of conscience,” but mostly the story of the
disintegration of one man. . . . A rare and compelling narrative. Far more
chilling than all the blood-and-guts accounts so far published, Steavenson’s
book should be a must-read on Iraq.”
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The Sunday Times
“It is a tribute to her reporting skills, not to mention her bravery, that
she has realized such an engrossing, multifaceted and emphatic biography, so
much so that by the time General Sachet’s life ends in a hail of bullets on a
rubbish dump, the reader has come to sympathise with a man who enjoyed power and
status at the very top of Saddam’s regime.”
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Literary Review
“Steavenson is a skilled journalist and a talented writer. She has produced a powerful portrait of a dysfunctional society…”
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The Times
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The Weight of a Mustard Seed
General Kamel Sachet was one of Saddam Hussein’s commanders in his Special Forces, in charge of Kuwait City during Desert Storm, and a governor in the province of Maysan. Over the course of two years in Baghdad, Wendell Steavenson came to know Sachet, his wife and their nine children closely, and...
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