A Hundred and One Days

The New York Times best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul paints a stunning and intimate portrait of Baghdad under siegeFrom January until April 2003-for one hundred and one days-Asne 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.

The New Yorker

Seierstad, a Norwegian who earned her stripes as a correspondent in Grozny and Kabul, went to Iraq two months before the bombs came. Her memoir touches all the familiar topics of prewar Iraq reporting: Baghdad’s poverty; the ubiquity of Saddam icons; Iraqis’ reluctance to confide their dislike of his regime; and, most prominently, the regime’s stifling control over visiting reporters. Her hundred and one days in Baghdad, however, come to an end even before the premature declaration that combat is over, and she can only hint at the intractable conflict that has engulfed Iraq in the two years since then. These dispatches, described as “snapshots,” are human-interest pieces, focussing on the anxieties of ordinary Iraqis rather than on the geopolitical upheaval outside her hotel window. Seierstad’s depictions of quotidian suffering are affecting, if sometimes saccharine, as the tyranny of Saddam gives way to the lawless chaos of the American invasion.

Seierstad has received numerous awards for her journalism and has reported from such war-torn regions as Chechnya, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. She is fluent in five languages.

Josephine Bailey was born in England and trained in performing arts at the Corona Academy in London. As a child, Josephine appeared in many feature films before going on to become a professional dancer. Returning to her love of acting has led to her recent performances for Hanna Barbera, Walt Disney and Nickleodeon.