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Hutchinson Heinemann signs Michael Palin’s ‘vivid and varied’ portrait of Iraq
Hutchinson Heinemann has signed Michael Palin’s account of his recent travels through Iraq, entitled Into Iraq, to be published in tandem with the release of a documentary series of the same name.
Nigel Wilcockson, associate publisher at Cornerstone, acquired world rights from Steve Abbott at Mayday Management. The documentary series is being produced by ITN Productions for Channel 5. Into Iraq will publish in hardback, e-book and audio on 15th September 2022.
The synopsis reads: “In March 2022, Michael Palin travelled the length of the River Tigris through Iraq to get a sense of what life is like in a region of the world that once formed the cradle of civilisation, but that in recent times has witnessed turmoil and appalling bloodshed.
“It was a journey of sharp, often brutal contrasts. At one moment he would be exploring the old streets of Baghdad or the ancient ruins of Babylon. At the next he would be visiting the war-torn city of Mosul, or learning about the horrific Speicher massacre in Tikrit. Now he shares the journal he meticulously kept during his trip, in which he describes the very varied places he visited, the people he met and the impressions he formed of a country that few outsiders now venture to see.
“Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and permeated with his warmth and humour, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country.”
Palin, an actor, writer and former member of the Monty Python comedy group whose “Michael Palin in South Korea” documentary series was nominated for a Bafta in 2018, said: “For much of my lifetime Iraq has been a symbol of war and destruction. Now that a tentative peace has broken out I wanted to see what happens to a country waking from a nightmare, in a land on which the first cities in the world were built.
“Not only was it my first time there, it was the first time I’d seen such damage and such resilience side by side. So much desperation and so much hope. I’ve never been in circumstances quite like it in all my life. Going into Iraq was, in the best sense of the word, an eye-opener.”
Previous books by Palin include Around the World in Eighty Days and Palin Pole to Pole (W&N).
Wilcockson said: “Michael’s new book is a superbly nuanced account of a region of the world that has witnessed both the best and the worst of humanity. He doesn’t judge. He seeks to understand. And he gets us to understand, too.”
