Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family

A lyrical, haunting, multi-generational memoir of one family's tempestuous century in Iraq from 1900 to the present. The Chalabis are one of the oldest and most prominent families in Iraq. For centuries they have occupied positions of honour and responsibility, loyally serving first the Ottoman Empire and, later, the national government. In `Late for Tea at the Deer Palace', Tamara Chalabi explores the dramatic story of her extraordinary family's history in this beautiful, passionate and troubled land. From the grand opulence of her great-grandfather's house and the birth of the modern state, through to the elegant Iraq of her grandmother Bibi, who lived the life of a queen in Baghdad, and finally to her own story, that of the ex-pat daughter of a family in exile, Chalabi takes us on an unforgettable and eye-opening journey. This is the story of a lost homeland, whose turbulent transformations over the twentieth century left gaping wounds at the hearts not only of the family it exiled, but also of the elegant, sophisticated world it once represented. When Tamara visited her once-beautiful ancestral land for the first time in 2003, she found a country she didn't recognize – and a nation on the brink of a terrifying and uncertain new beginning. Lyrical and unique, this exquisite multi-generational memoir brings together east and west, the poetic and the political as it brings to life a land of beauty and grace that has been all but lost behind recent headlines.

About the Author :
Tamara Chalabi has a PHD from Harvard University in History. Her dissertation 'The Shi'is of Jabal'Amil and the New Lebanon 1918-1943' was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2006. She has written for 'Sunday Times', 'New York Sun' and 'Prospect Magazine'. She lives in Iraq and London.

Review :
'Tamara Chalabi is a writer of exquisite talents. Her "Late for Tea at the Deer Palace" is a magical book of imagination and memory. She has achieved with Arabic material, and the world of her family and the world of Iraq, what the great Latin American authors have done in their world. An author coming into her own, Tamara Chalabi will redifine English writing in the Arab world.' Fouad Ajami, author of 'Dream Palace of the Arabs' 'I think it's an admirable endeavour to have Iraq addressed by someone who is in so many ways able to approach it from two worlds: old bourgeois Iraq versus new lumpen Iraq; female Iraq versus masked male Iraq; cosmopolitan Iraq versus sectarian Iraq; British Iraq versus Americanised Iraq; diaspora Iraq versus intensely provincial and hermetic Iraq...In my opinion, Tamara Chalabi has the stuff, in every sense, that is needful to undertake this.' Christopher Hitchens 'Tamara Chalabi is...placed at a historical juncture...one that grew out of the void of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Her family's story allows us into the mapping of Iraq...Tamara's story is really the story of modern Iraq.' Justine Hardy, author of 'The Wonder House'