2nd September 2010

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The Weight of a Mustard Seed

Wendell Steavenson

If you can’t protect yourself from a tyrant, how can you protect your family? And how does a proud man live with that knowledge?

The story of Iraq, told from the inside out; a portrait of the Iraqis behind the headlines, forced to choose between exile and collaboration, God and jihad. A book that sears the heart and pierces the soul.

Father, husband, soldier, believer: General Kamel Sachet was a favourite of Saddam Hussein’s, a decorated hero of the Iran – Iraq war, the man in charge of Kuwait City during Desert Storm. But Sachet was also a devoted family man, and when it came time for his sons to do their military service he refused to let them join the 'criminal' organization that he had given his life to. His wife, sons and daughters revered him, depended on him, suffered for him, in the end, grieved for him.

In The Weight of a Mustard Seed, Wendell Steavenson tells the story of Kamel Sachet and those closest to him – his wife, his sons and daughters and his friends: a psychiatrist, the head of the Republican Guard, one of the directors of Abu Ghraib prison – during Saddam’s four wars and his brutal repression of dissent, the exhausting years of sanctions, and the internecine anarchy of the American occupation. She has intricately pieced together a sensitive, surprising, and utterly compelling account of the slow destruction of a man, his family, and his country.

About the author

Wendell Steavenson is the author of the acclaimed Stories I Stole (Atlantic Books, 2002), which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. She has worked for Time, and written for a variety of publications, including the Telegraph, Granta, Prospect, and the New Yorker. She lives in Paris.

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