Krovʹ na peske

by Sergeĭ Plekhanov

Moscow, Publishing house “Journalist”, 2007 The first biography of Saddam Hussein published after his death. Based on impressions of Iraq in the years of Saddam’s rule the book gives an idea of historical and cultural peculiarity of the country. The writer has met representatives of the political elite, commons, has made acquaintance with heads of different religious confessions, has been to the tribes of Bedouins and “marsh Arabs”. Sacred towns of the Shiites and orthodox monasteries, ruins of Babylon and of Assyrian cities, battle-fields of Iran-Iraq war and places of combats against American invaders are a kind of a scenery of a breath-taking drama that “The Life and the Death of Saddam” has been. A political portrait of a revolutionary and politician shows strong and weak sides of Hussein, his achievements and failures. The character of the book is shown as a strong and contradictory personality who does not stop against anything in order to achieve his goal.