Being an American journalist can put people on the defensive. In countries where people assume the press is partisan, like in Lebanon, or where it had essentially become an extension of the government, like in Iraq, people tend to see… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share Image
Americans are curious about the texture of everyday life in the Middle East because they rarely get to see it. I wanted readers to… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
In the Middle East, bread is so essential to everyday life that word for it in Egyptian Arabic is aish, which means life. It's… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
There's a long history in the Middle East of "bread intifadas," starting with 1977 in Egypt, when Anwar Sadat tried to lift bread subsidies.… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
But how can you understand a war without any knowledge of the society where it happens? It's like trying to understand birth without knowing… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
I chose to write about food: food is inherently political, but it's also an essential part of people's real lives. It's where the public… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
The Middle East is the only region in the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa where rates of malnutrition actually rose over the past decade… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
For my generation - the "Children of Nixon," as I call us in the book - the Lebanese civil war was an iconic event.… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
The problem is that so many of them are not getting told. This is a massive problem, not just in the Middle East but… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
There hasn't been a lot written about it in the Western media. But in the Arab world, and Western Asia as a whole, Baghdad… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
As a journalist, or an anthropologist, the convention is that people are there for you to study, and they are your objects. — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
But being an American woman married to an Arab guy - and a Muslim to boot! - put me in a different category. People… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
There were a hundred booksellers in the old round city founded by the eighth-century caliph al-Mansur. The café and wine-drinking culture of Baghdad has… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
We're taught that domestic life is not a "serious" political topic, like war and peace, but the fact is that we spend most of… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
How can a country be home to sectarian militias and yet also to people who are educated, sophisticated, and pluralistic? This is not a… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
Part of the reason you see so little about this in the Western media is that Iraq was closed off from the outside world… — Annia Ciezadlo Copy Share
