Our Man in Iraq

Robert Perišić

Translated by Will Firth

Istros Books

Paperback

292pp

ISBN: 9781908236043

Fiction

Publication date: 6 June 2012

£7.99

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A local journalist sends a distant relative to report on the war in Iraq, while he stays at home to sort out his love life and his professional career – all to varying degrees of success. As time goes on, things begin to unravel and he ends up having to fake his missing cousin’s reports while struggling to hold on to his actress girlfriend. Our Man in Iraq is a take on the Iraqi conflict from the other side of Europe, where politics and nepotism collide and the confusing aftereffects of the recent Yugoslav wars mix with the joys and trials of modern life.

With an introduction by Tim Judah of The Economist.

Robert Perisic is a light bright with intelligence and twinkling with irony, flashing us the news that postwar Croatia not only endures but matters.’Jonathan Franzen

‘Robert Perisic depicts, with acerbic wit, a class of urban elites who are trying to reconcile their nineties rebellion with the reality of present-day Croatia. . . . The characters’ snide remarks could easily sound cynical but the novel has a levity informed by the sense of social fluidity that comes with democracy.’The New Yorker