"Verdicts" by the Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage will be out this Saturday (15 Oct), and I'm somewhat looking forward to the results (as if it would prove me something). According to OpenDemocracy the finalists are:
* Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq, by Riverbend;
* Of Wars: Letters to Friends”, by Caroline Emcke;
* Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier, by Alexandra Fuller ;
* A Season in Mecca: Account of a Pilgrimage, by Abdellah Hammoudi;
* The Outlaw Sea: Chaos and Crime on the World’s Oceans, by William Langewiesche;
* Maximum City: Bombay lost and found, by Suketu Mehta;
* Death in the Little Pentagon: The Secret Killing Fields of the Peruvian Army, by Ricardo Uceda.
It quickly came to my mind that most of these writings were promises of a wealth of "classic" extremes--abnormal or twisted situations or views of life being taken as the central focuses: wars and crimes, criming and soldiering. They are great themes every writer envious to write about, but war stories have cloyed me up here. Great reports they are, they come with a question for us to answer, on why in our age we still have to be exposed with such horrors and monstrositites. I've learned enough how some societal fabrics are spun in this life, so I hardly found nomination of such stories surprising. In fact, my guess is that the Baghdad Burning may be the winner, due to the double (if not multi-) sensations that the work carries with it. It is about living the Post-Saddam Hussein's Iraq (whose occupation by international troops was a modern time tragedy in itself) and the fact it was taken from a blog written by a blogger who is Iraqian by the name of Riverbend, who is a 27 year old female. My sympathy with what's been going on in and with Iraq and the people has nothing to do with this, but finding Baghdad Burning win will be cause enough for me to take a long deep breath and to smile relief; otherwise, my next hope is A Season in Mecca.
