By IANS
New York : “Imperial Life in the Emerald City”, the acclaimed book on Iraq by Washington Post senior editor Rajiv Chandrasekaran, has been listed by The New York Times among the 10 best books of 2007.
The book, which is being turned into a movie by Hollywood’s Universal Pictures, is among the five best non-fiction books of the year listed in The New York Times Book Review section published on Sunday.
The paper said it selected the book because it “discloses the hidden realities of the first post-war year in Baghdad’s Green Zone”. The Green Zone refers to a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq.
“Imperial Life in the Emerald City” is Chandrasekaran’s first book and is based on the Indian American journalist’s experiences in Iraq, where he was stationed as the Post’s Baghdad bureau chief in 2003-04.
The book, published in 2006 by Knopf/Random House, won the 30,000-pound Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction for 2007.
Matt Damon, star of “Ocean’s Eleven” and its two sequels, is likely to star in the movie version of the book, slated for release in 2009.