The Baghdad Blog (Book from a Blog)
4 Oct
‘MY MAN SALAM. I’M A TOTAL FAN. TELLS IT LIKE HE SEES IT, AND SEES IT LIKE I CAN’T.’ — William Gibson
In September 2002, a young Iraqi calling himself ‘Salam Pax’ began posting accounts of everyday life in Baghdad on to the internet. Written in English, in the form of a web log (or `blog’), these bulletins contained everything from musings on his CD collection to open criticisms of Saddam’s regime. In keeping this web diary, Salam took a huge risk: if he had been caught condemning it could have cost him his life.
Salam Pax’s incisive and sharply funny diary entries soon attracted a worldwide readership. As the American-led force gathered to invade Iraq, Salam’s diary became an extraordinary record of the anticipation, resentment, bemusement and sheer terror felt by an ordinary man living through the final days of a long dictatorship, and the chaos that has followed its destruction.
The Baghdad Blog tells the story of the war in Iraq from inside that besieged country. It provides a gripping and wholly unique perspective on the conflict and its aftermath.
Now, this is interesting. Salam Pax vaulted to to international Internet celebrity because, as Peter Maass of Slate put it, he was ” the Anne Frank of the war … and its Elvis”. Now, Pax’s blog has been turned into a book. More proof that the Internet in general and blogs in specific are changing the face of the publishing industry.
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