HW 25: Responding to the Intro and Foreword

Baghdad Burning is a written account of a women’s experience in the Iraqi War, this women is known as Riverbend. The foreword of this novel is written by Ahdaf Soueif, in this Ahdaf explains that Riverbend is explaining her experiences and tribulations of her everyday life in Iraq. This book is not Anti-American at all; Ahdaf tells us that Riverbend just wanted the public to know what a person had to go through in this wartime. This foreword differs from the introduction written by James Ridgeway in that it is more focused on the life of Riverbend, while Ridgeway gives us a background of the relations between the U.S. and Iraq throughout the years. Both are intriguing and give us a good feel for the novel and the problems that Riverbend and other Iraqi citizens have been exposed to. When reading the history of Iraq and the “Bush War”, it seemed a little repetitive since I already had a good sense of what has happened. This is because I have had to study this subject earlier in my high school career and written papers on this conflict.