No-one asked me to recommend my Books of the Year, but I’m going to tell you anyway! I’ve chosen four books on countries which I’ve reported from, blogs Lindsey Hilsum.
No-one asked me to recommend my books of the year, but I’m going to tell you anyway! I’ve chosen four books on countries which I’ve reported from. Declaration of interest: I know all the authors, but then, there would be something wrong if I didn’t know the writers of the best books on places which I cover.
CHINA
The Party; The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, by Richard McGregor reads like a mystery – because China’s Communist Party is a mystery. Like God, it is everywhere and nowhere, all-seeing and all-controlling, but its tracks are often covereed and its true nature hidden. The secret world of the Organisation Department, which oversees the appointments of everyone who is anyone in the Chinese hierachy – including many of those working for supposedly “private” companies – is exposed. I learnt more about how China really works from this book than from almost any other. Brilliant – and very readable.
NORTH KOREA
Nothing to Envy; Real Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick is about love and hunger, a chronicle of extraordinary suffering, bravery and desperation. The North Korean refugees she meets in Seoul tell her intimate details of their lives, so she is able to piece together a picture of what life was like in Chongjin, a town closed to outsiders, where famine reached its height in the 1990s. Yet this is not a miserable book, because the characters are so engaging, and we get right inside their psyches, turning the pages to find out the resolution to the love affair described at the start, and the fate of families torn apart by famine and exile.
IRAN
Let the Swords Encircle Me; Iran – a Journey Behind the Headlines, by Scott Peterson is an intense book, full of carefully sourced detail and anecdote. It’s the best account I’ve read of how President Ahmadinejad came to power, and why he remains there. Scott has spent years talking to those who share the President’s messianic conviction that the End Times are coming, the key to understanding Iran today, as well as to those who rose against the government after the 2009 elections.
MEXICO
Amexica; War Along the Borderline, by Ed Vulliamy takes us along the 2100 mile long border between Mexico and the USA, cauldron of the drug wars. His best insight is that the narco-wars are not happening despite Mexico’s evolution into a modern, capitalist state but because of it. The movement of drugs is facilitated by free trade; the spoils are the trivial accoutrements of modern wealth: fast cars, huge sound systems, tasteless mansions. And in amongst the horror, priests and women’s groups trying to help the victims. Sobering, upsetting but fascinating.
Happy reading in 2011.