Last Days in Babylon by Marina Benjamin

BEFORE the Second World War, Jews made up about a third of the population of Baghdad. By 2006, their number had dwindled to 12. Marina Benjamin investigates why, taking as a starting point her grandmother, Regina, who quit the country in 1951 after tensions escalated between Iraq and the nascent Israel, winding up in Hounslow, where she worked in a carpet store and remembered the old days over Turkish coffee and menthols.

Benjamin wasn't much interested back then, but in 2004, haunted by her history, she took a trip to the war zone, suitcase stuffed with vacuum-packed kosher meat as a calling card. Last Days in Babylon is a rich and moving family memoir, but it's much more, too: a fascinating and impassioned look at an unknown world..

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk
Marina Benjamin grew up in London, feeling estranged from her family's Middle Eastern ways, refusing to speak Arabic or eat their food. But when Benjamin had her own child a few years ago, she realized that she was losing her link to the past, inspiring a journey to Baghdad and into her family's history. Her discoveries will haunt anyone who seeks to understand a country whose ongoing struggles continue to command the world's attention. By turns moving and funny, "Last Days in Babylon" is an adventure story, a riveting history and a timely reminder that behind today's headlines are real people whose lives are caught in the crossfire of misunderstanding, prejudice and ambition.