"Evening Standard" (U.K.)
"Anyone wanting to understand the Russia of today should read this compelling, shocking book about the forgotten suffering of Chechnya... a powerful book of heartbreaking yet flamboyant reportage from a forgotten hell."
"Sunday Herald" (U.K.)
"If Kapuscinski was the modern master of literary reportage, then Asne Seierstad's "THE ANGEL OF GROZNY" proves her a worthy follower with this bleak but beautiful book."
"Kirkus"
"A sympathetic, brave work from a deeply engaged war correspondent."""
" Sunday Times" (U.K.)
"[Asne Seierstad] has produced the best book in English about one of the world's most brutal and under-reported conflicts."
"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)
"Seierstad's vivid, unsparing reportage makes this distant tragedy very personal."
" Booklist" (starred review)
"Powerful, painful, and raw, Seierstad's latest is essential reading."" "
"Scotsman" (U.K.)
"Extraordinary and deeply harrowing...a tenacious and compassionate reporter, [Asne Seierstad] finds her way into the homes of Chechens and tells their stories...[a] brave, disturbing book."
" Time Out London" (U.K.)
"Touching stories of loss, survival and bravery...an invaluable account of the stormy conflicts that have blighted the area for centuries."
"The Observer" (U.K.)
"As a crash course on recent Chechen and Russian history, Seierstad's account is invaluable: she presents all the confusing contradictions of the conflict in a straightforward, accessible way, which is no mean feat...she has a real eye for detail and the human heart of a story."
"Independent" (U.K.)
"[Asne Seierstad] tells their stories with poignancy and compassion. "THE ANGEL OF GROZNY" reads at times almost like a novel; the pity is that Seierstad isn't making it up."
"Evening Standard" (U.K.) "Anyone wanting to understand the Russia of today should read this compelling, shocking book about the forgotten suffering of Chechnya... a powerful book of heartbreaking yet flamboyant reportage from a forgotten hell." "Sunday Herald" (U.K.) "If Kapuscinski was the modern master of literary reportage, then Asne Seierstad's "THE ANGEL OF GROZNY" proves her a worthy follower with this bleak but beautiful book."
"Kirkus ""A sympathetic, brave work from a deeply engaged war correspondent.""" "Sunday Times" (U.K.) "[Asne Seierstad] has produced the best book in English about one of the world's most brutal and under-reported conflicts."
"Publishers Weekly" (starred review) "Seierstad's vivid, unsparing reportage makes this distant tragedy very personal." "Booklist" (starred review) "Powerful, painful, and raw, Seierstad's latest is essential reading."" "
"Scotsman" (U.K.) "Extraordinary and deeply harrowing...a tenacious and compassionate reporter, [Asne Seierstad] finds her way into the homes of Chechens and tells their stories...[a] brave, disturbing book." "Time Out London" (U.K.) "Touching stories of loss, survival and bravery...an invaluable account of the stormy conflicts that have blighted the area for centuries."
"The Observer" (U.K.) "As a crash course on recent Chechen and Russian history, Seierstad's account is invaluable: she presents all the confusing contradictions of the conflict in a straightforward, accessible way, which is no mean feat...she has a real eye for detail and the human heart of a story." "Independent" (U.K.) "[Asne Seierstad] tells their stories with poignancy and compassion. "THE ANGEL OF GROZNY" reads at times almost like a novel; the pity is that Seierstad isn't making it up."
In this searing journey through a traumatized Chechnya, two children orphaned by the civil war-Timur, a violent street urchin, and his sister Liana, a waif molested by her uncle who becomes a kleptomaniac-symbolize their country's agony, abandonment and lingering dysfunctions. Norwegian journalist Seierstad (The Bookseller of Kabul) includes them in a gallery of portraits drawn from her reporting-sometimes undercover-from the region. These include a kindly childless woman who runs Grozny's last orphanage; a Russian soldier suffering from brain damage caused by a rebel mine; survivors of Stalin's expulsion of the Chechens to Kazakhstan in WWII; and a family whose daughter joined an Islamist sect and died in the spectacular terrorist takeover of a Moscow theater. Even more disturbing is her chilling, absurdist depiction of the regime of Moscow-backed Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, which combines torture and disappearances with a saccharine cult of personality. (One of Kadyrov's youth groups distributed roses on his behalf to every woman in Grozny.) There are many victims but few heroes; the author finds chauvinism and Islamist misogyny to be among the reliable reflexes of the dispossessed in this wounded society. Seierstad's vivid, unsparing reportage makes this distant tragedy very personal. (Sept.)
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The best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul here provides a dark look at the plight of children abused and orphaned by war in Chechnya. Equal parts history, biography, and ethnography, the text documents Seierstad's travels into the war-torn region, for periods from 1994 through 2006, giving firsthand accounts of the lives of both Russians and Chechens under an ever-changing banner of presidents, rebels, and pseudoleaders. Heavily laden with the history of the conflict, the story focuses mainly on the Chechen woman (referenced in the title) who, unable to have children, has taken in hundreds of orphans during a war that has not yet ended. With haunting, occasionally melodic, occasionally clinical prose (at least as translated by Christensen), Seierstad reveals how knowing nothing but anger, poverty, and conflict can damage the psyche of a child and how a mother's love is sometimes enough to change a life-but sometimes is not. The ending is far from happy, and it reminds readers that there is more than one war happening in our world today. For both public and academic libraries.
—Jenny Seftas
Norwegian journalist Seierstad (The Bookseller of Kabul, 2003, etc.) movingly reports on the bleak fallout from the wars in Chechnya. Her atmospheric and heartbreakingly sad text records two treks to the newly independent Muslim country: in 1995, shortly after the disastrous invasion by Russian troops under Boris Yeltsin, and again 12 years later when the war raged anew under Vladimir Putin. Seierstad was a 24-year-old rookie journalist eager to join the fray (despite warnings of sniper attacks) when she hitched a ride with Russian troops into Grozny in 1995. She found the city emptied of men, who were fighting in the mountains, and full of starving, terrified women. Its hospitals, orphanages, waterworks and homes had been demolished by Russian attacks. The Chechens' lives had been blown apart by war, and thousands of orphans had been left to survive on their own. Following the author's initial trip, Aslan Maskhadov was elected as Chechnya's first president in 1997. He proved unable to control the spread of wahhabism, a radical form of Islamic fundamentalism that split the country and led to new conflict with Russia. After Maskhadov's assassination in March 2005, Seierstad found her way back into the country and met Hadijat, called the Angel of Grozny because she never turned away a child in need. In her unofficial orphanage Hadijat and her husband Malik cared for scores of children who had been abandoned, abused and traumatized, left with few prospects for education or a future. The author listened to these suffering youngsters and chronicles their tales of torture, deportation and misery. She also offers her observations on the absurdities of Chechnya's new, Soviet-style dictator RamzanKadyrov, who simply denied the existence of 20,000 orphans. Chechens pride themselves as fearless freedom fighters and frequently take the wolf as their symbol, Seierstad notes, but they "forgot that the wolf is a beast of prey that mercilessly pursues every weak, defenseless animal."A sympathetic, brave work from a deeply engaged war correspondent.
