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Through his photographs and a fascinating diary kept while he covered the war, award-winning photojournalist David Turnley has created a gripping, detailed, and reflective portrait of life during wartime. Rarely has such extraordinary photography been matched with such a revealing and absorbing text, both by a veteran observer of over twenty years of warfare. The result is a landmark book by one of journalism's most gifted practitioners documenting the courage of both Americans and Iraqis.
Turnley's tour of duty in the Middle East began this time in February 2003, when CNN sent him there to generate video, photography, and on-air reportage. Operating independent of American troops, he was first smuggled across the heavily guarded Turkish border into Syria and then guided by Kurdish peshmergas through Tigris River marshes into northern Iraq, where Kurdish irregulars and American special forces faced Iraqi regiments. Turnley traversed the Kurdish war zones to encounter a string of increasingly hostile Sunni-dominated towns and arrived to witness the fall of Baghdad.
Over a four-week period, Turnley and his companions faced the tragedy of life on the front line, alternatively welcomed and threatened by different Iraqi factions. Interrupted by attempted ambushes, unrelenting danger, and poignant moments of personal contact, his journey is recounted with insight, humanity, and humor. His exceptional gift as a photographer allowed him to create a brilliant group of images that show Iraqi life with surprising candor and beauty. And his deeply informed diary places us at his side in the heart of a war-torn landscape. The result is Baghdad Blues, a remarkable work of battlefield reporting that reveals the profound humanity on all sides of the conflict.
