Peace Meals, by Anna Badkhen, 288 pp., $25 (available as of Oct. 12)
While his wife stuffs grape leaves, a Saddam-provoking writer in Northern Iraq describes solitary jail cells and torture chambers. At a restaurant in Afghanistan, militiamen eat marinated lamb with sharp metal skewers, guns within reach. And so it goes on: baba ghanouj in Jerusalem, herring in Moscow, ugali with sukuma wiki (cornmeal and collard greens) in drought-wrenched Kenya.
Though war correspondent Anna Badkhen has seen, heard, and reported hundreds of unspeakably horrific stories in the past decade, her memoir does not focus on the tragedies in "Peace Meals." Instead she writes of locals met and meals shared, the “straightforward acts of humanity in lands of terror, conflict, and seemingly intractable grief.”
As she travels, Badkhen embeds herself in the cultures – and ever-present dangers – of war-torn nations. With careful observation, she sees beyond the heartbreaking stories of the families and soldiers, refugees and warlords, she meets. Her eloquent, honest words tell an in-depth history of recent war, and also make known courageous and resourceful people whose actions, or lack thereof, are forced by circumstance.
Nora Dunne is a Monitor contributor.
