Middle East Studies

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David Enders has a stunning independent streak and the courage ...

(Joe Sacco, author of Safe Area Gorazde)

David Enders has a stunning independent streak and the courage to trust his own perceptions as he reports from outside the bubble Americans have created for themselves in Iraq.

(Joe Sacco, author of Safe Area Gorazde)

David Enders is a 24 year old independent journalist who ...

(Booktv)

David Enders is a 24 year old independent journalist who moved to Baghdad during the war in Iraq to open the only English language newspaper in Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation. The book chronicles his experiences as a journalist with press credentials covering the war from outside the territory of the coalition-controlled Green Zone, and gives a first-hand account of life for Iraqi civilians during the war. Mr Enders tells stories of hiring a local Iraqi to act as a house manager for his staff, having guns held to his head, and of daily civilian interaction with coalition forces.

(Booktv)

As Iraq edges towards a new constitution, the future looks ...

(Campaign for Press & Broadcasting Fr)

As Iraq edges towards a new constitution, the future looks more uncertain than ever. This is the story of what life is really like on the ground in Iraq. At the age of just 22, Dave Enders went to Iraq to set up Baghdad’s only independent English-language newspaper. This is his account of what it’s like to be a reporter working beyond the usual confines of ‘embedded’ journalists.

(Campaign for Press & Broadcasting Freedom)

Baghdad Bulletin is a street-level account of the invasion and ...

(Fred Rhodes, The Middle East)

Baghdad Bulletin is a street-level account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as seen through the eyes of the young independent journalist David Enders. Taking the reader where mainstream news accounts do not go, Enders recounts his decision to go to Iraq, where he launched the only English language newspaper completely written, printed and distributed there during the invasion and aftermath. Young, courageous, anti-authoritarian, and with the spirit to trust his own perceptions Enders was the first reporter to cover the war as experienced by ordinary Iraqis. Deprived of the press credentials that gave his embedded colleagues access to press conferences and officially sanitised information, he tells the story of a different war, as he reports from outside the bubble the Americans have created for themselves in Iraq - the Green Zone. It is a story in which the struggle of everyday life is interspersed with moments of sheer terror and absurdity: Wired American troops training their guns on terrified civilians; Iraqi musicians preparing a recital for coalition officials who never show, travelling clowns wreaking havoc in a Baghdad police station. Orphans and intellectuals, activists and insurgents, Baghdad Bulletin depicts the unseen complexity of Iraqi society and gives us a powerful glimpse of a new kind of warfare, one that coexists with - and sometimes tragically veers into the everyday rhythms of life.

(Fred Rhodes, The Middle East)