Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Bait and Switch

Customer Rating:

Silent Exodus: Portraits of Iraqi Refugees in Exile I ordered this book because it was a recommendation by Amazon.com, listing the author as Khaled Hosseini. Although I had not read anywhere that Mr. Hosseini had been releasing a new book - such an event would be big news in the literary circles - I thought that maybe I had missed it in the book review sections and other places that announce such news. Anticipating another masterpiece in the vein of "Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", I did not expect to get a photo-journal, and not a particularly good one, with a very short, very general introduction, by Mr. Hosseini in his role as UNHCR ambassador. This is a blatant bait and switch tactic by Amazon.com, which I frankly used to hold to a higher standard. As you can see from the product link above, there is no "Search Inside" for this book, so I could not find out beforehand what I was buying. I have to be more careful about Amazon.com's recommendations from now on. The book needs this bait and switch tactic to sell, as it cannot sell on its own merit. It is full of pictures of Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and other host countries that are not very graphic or heart rending. They seem to be people who are living the normal life of the vast majority of the inhabitants of their host countries. The dialogs accompanying each set of pictures are disjointed from them. There is absolutely no doubt about the enormity of the human suffering faced daily by these displaced people. However, one does not feel the refugees' plight from these pictures and the associated dialog. This is nothing like the pictures of the African refugees that you see in even in daily papers. The problems of the Iraqi refugees are enormous, their plight truly one of the greatest tragedies of the new century. It deserves better representation than this book.

So Sad!	Customer Rating:
I purchased this book as a Christmas present, but I did glance through it and was impressed with the photography and the sadness. Zalmai is an artist!

Visually Powerful

Customer Rating:

I received this book today and sat down and read through it. Don't be mistaken, it is not long and it is almost completely pictures. "A picture is worth a thousand words." Never more true has it been than when I sat down with this book. My wife started to read this and had to stop due to the graphic nature of some of the pictures. In addition, almost all of the written text in the book is directly quoted from people who were interviewed. There truly isn't a way to explain what is being said through any other words. Ultimately this book will do many things, be that infuriate you, inspire you, or simply make you want to cry. Recommend reading this book and deciding for yourself.