Baghdad Burning
Hoaxster (my opinion only) wins literary honor. The 24 y/o Iraqi native, former computer programmer, writing from Baghdad under the pseudonym Riverbend - or if you've been following the blog, more likely a jokester in River Bend, USA.
6 comments:
I've heard of riverbend but have not been reading her. Spurred by your piece here, I Scroogled for discussion of whether her blog is a hoax and did not find anything substantive, only a couple of offhand comments of suspicion. What is your basis for doubt, Kate?
The UK/The Times quote from Samuel Johnson re women irritated me nicely. But then, anything to keep the blood warm on a cool gray day, lol.
dus,
I read her blog when it began and felt it was too invented. No proof that it's a "hoax" other than personal opinion. The language was too "Americanized" for someone supposedly 24 y/o from a somewhat affluent family and a computer programmer working under the Saddam regime.
I read too many colloquial phrases and American idiomatic style to believe Riverbend who she says she is. I thought perhaps she might have an American born or raised ghostwriter but I have yet to see mention of that so assume not.
I know too many foreign speakers of English to find her grammatical use of the language and expressions are anything but a native speaker of English.
For someone living under her self-described circumstances she sounds more like a professional propagandist, repeating what sound like "made in america" talking points. Not that I disagree with all of her rhetoric or creative ability - but I think it's a ruse.
Kate,
I'd always had the same feeling when I was reading RB back in '03 and '04. It was more like a cognitive disconnect: why did this Iraqi living under siege write just like an articulate, native English speaker, & US English to boot? (I've taught ESL overseas and my wife and many friends are non-native speakers, so I'm tuned in to 'non-standard' usage.)
I always assumed she was educated in the USA, and left it at that. Then I wandered away. I don't need to hear anything more about doings in Iraq to know which way the cold winds are blowing... in towards us Homeland-dwellers.
A Friend
you think the blog is a fake because you can't believe that there are non-americans who have a better command of the english language than most americans? get alive, woman. that is nothing unusual at all.
supposed interview with Riverbend:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4C5B8EE6-F99C-4AB9-84B6-40F7F8F9B656.htm
Thanks anon. Good 'ole aljeercia net.
Now why would someone her age (26), who spent her childhood "abroad," return to Iraq at any time in the last 16 years? Born around 1980 why in the world would she or her family return to the 1991-2003 sanctioned, bombed, starved, carcass of a country? Those who have the means to escape such environs don't return on a whim or to live in misery by choice.
Was Saddam the reason they left to begin with? And why return in 2003, in the middle of a war, unless you or family expected high level positions after the fall of Saddam?
Me thinks the lady is a con. Sounds like one of the many "exiled" elite who spent decades in Europe waiting for the US to put them in power.
But since she claims the guv now are "puppets" she must have missed out on that job.
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