Hukumshahichya Savlit by Wendell Steavenson

Tells the story of General Kamel Sachet, a decorated hero of the long Iran-Iraq war and a favourite of Saddam Hussein`s. This book reveals the emotional and psychological scars the Sachet family suffer as a result of decades spent living with war and repression. If you are unable to protect yourself from a tyrant, how can you protect your family? And how does a proud man live with that knowledge? Reminiscent in part of "Stasiland" and "The Bookseller of Kabul", this is the story of one family`s struggle to survive the iniquities of Saddam Hussein`s savage dictatorship. It is a career-defining book for Wendell Steavenson. In "The Weight of a Mustard Seed", Wendell Steavenson tells the story of General Kamel Sachet, a decorated hero of the long Iran-Iraq war and a favourite of Saddam Hussein`s. As Steavenson reveals the emotional and psychological scars the Sachet family suffer as a result of decades spent living with war and repression, she reaches towards the heart of a previously unspoken story of Iraq: a once prosperous nation, reduced by Hussein`s megalomania and paranoia to bankruptcy, corruption and impotence. The result is an intimate, startling and gripping account of the slow destruction of Sachet, his family and his country.