If it’s Tuesday, it must be Chechnya

TO CATCH A TARTAR, by Chris Bird (John Murray, $29.99); GOING TO EXTREMES, by Nick Middleton (Pan, $27.95); EIGHT FEET IN THE ANDES, by Dervla Murphy (John Murray, $29.99); CHILDREN OF KALI, by Kevin Rushby (Robinson, $29.95).

By Tze Ming Mok In Uncategorized

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31st January, 2004

To travel writers, nothing is merely real in foreign parts; all is symbolism. That blindspot is critically targeted by journalist Chris Bird in his superb book To Catch a Tartar. "The problem with this war is that it's too goddamn romantic," a fellow journalist complains to him, as they wait out a doomed ceasefire in Chechnya. Bird, who also covered the 1999 Racak massacre in Kosovo for the Observer, unflinchingly filed for Associated Press during Chechnya's first war of secession (1994-96) with post-Soviet Russia. His book is an accomplished exercise in the highest mode of eyewitness ...

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