Playing Atari with Saddam Hussein
Based on a True Story
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Video game villains and real-life dictators dominate daily life for eleven-year-old Ali
Ali Fadhil has very simple likes and dislikes. It is 1991 in Iraq and all Ali wants to do is read his comics and play football and video games. But President Saddam Hussein has other plans. After he invades neighbouring Kuwait, the U.S. and their allies launch Operation Desert Storm to force him out. Over the next forty-three days, Ali and his family would survive bombings, food shortages and constant fear.
Cinematic and timely, this is the story of how war changed one boy’s destiny forever and would one day bring him face to face with Saddam himself at the UN trial.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fadhil's childhood in Iraq forms the basis of this dramatic fictionalized account of life during Operation Desert Storm, the 43-day war that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1991, which conveys both the horrors and banality of war. Eleven-year-old Ali loves reading Superman comics, playing soccer, and watching American television, from which he has learned English. He hates Saddam Hussein and anguishes that "soon, America the land that I love is going to try to kill me." Ali's narrative voice captures the tension of a boy who is young enough to cry when his mother burns a comic book to cook their rice and old enough to comprehend the absurdity of Americans dubbing the nightly bombing "the video game war." Ali's experiences include being forced to watch a public execution, fearing his father has been killed, and being irritated that he can't play outside. Roy (Jars of Hope) and Fadhil, an interpreter during Hussein's trial, offer a window into what Ali calls "the true Iraq" and a disturbing but accessible portrait of a civilian child's perspective on war. Ages 10 12.)
