When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad

"Set in Baghdad in the 1960s, When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad is about the vulnerable Jewish community in the revolutionary modern capital. The story is told by Lina - the youngest daughter in a middle-class Jewish family. Unlike her friends, Lina is not eager to grow up, at least not before she has left Baghdad for a better world, where girls wear trousers in the street and boys their hair shoulder-length. Yet Lina's dreams are far from being realised. Shortly after the Six Day War Laurence, the English boy next door whom she worships, leaves the country for good. Her father is sacked. Shuli, her elder brother, is arrested. Dudi, her wayward classmate, talks her into a futile search for Kurdish smugglers by the Tigris, while grey Volkswagen Beetles, allegedly driven by the security police, roam the city." "Overwhelmed by fear and despair, Lina resolves to unlearn her mother tongue - her only way of striking back. She works out a plan by which she gradually omits words from her vocabulary, thus distancing herself - word by word - from her native land."--Jacket.