BLACK WAVES

SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN AND THE RIVALRY THAT UNRAVELLED THE MIDDLE EAST

KIM GHATTAS

Wildfire, 400pp, £20

The strife-torn Middle East today is a consequence of three seismic events that took place in 1979: the fall of the Shah, the attack by Muslim zealots on the Grand Mosque at Mecca, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. So says Kim Ghattas, who grew up in Lebanon and then spent several years reporting on the Middle East for the BBC. Old enough to remember the joie de vivre that once characterised Beirut, she particularly deplores the puritanical misogyny imposed by fundamentalist regimes like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

‘But,’ said Toby Matthiesen in the Financial Times, ‘the book is not essentially about the veil, or about women. It is about power politics, and the complicated relationship between the Iranian revolution and its supporters on the one hand, and its enemies on the other.’ What impressed the Observer’s Ian Black about ‘this wonderfully readable account’ was Ghattas’s focus on ‘Intellectuals, clerics and novelists … because they represent ideas and suffering in the face of repressive regimes and intolerant ideologies.

The contrast with many academic studies of these countries and issues is striking – and very much in the author’s favour.’

In the New Statesman, John Jenkins echoed Ian Black’s verdict: ‘While others have covered some of the terrain before... Ghattas has a wider and more contemporary sweep. There is a simmering anger not far below the surface of her book. It is a gripping tale. It is a tract for our time. Read and weep. But also, like Ghattas, allow yourself to hope.’

‘It is a tract for our time. Read and weep. But also, like Ghattas, allow yourself to hope’