Entertainment Weekly
June 22, 2007
THE REVIEWS: BOOKS; Pg. 73 No. 940
1001 Nights in Iraq
by Brian Palmer
1001 Nights in Iraq
Shant Kenderian
Memoir
PAPERBACK
Harrowing doesn’t begin to describe Kenderian’s 10-year ordeal. After
living in Chicago for two years, the 17-year-old Armenian Christian
Iraqi went home in 1980 to visit his estranged father. While there,
he was forced into the Iraqi navy during Saddam Hussein’s war with
Iran. When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, he was press-ganged back
into the navy. Then things got worse. Kenderian writes
matter-of-factly, with the stoicism of someone who has endured the
seemingly unendurable. But his story is mind-blowing enough to keep
you turning the pages. B+