The bulk of 1001 Nights in Iraq, describing his life as a soldier during the Persian Gulf war, is the stuff of a standard battle memoir: comradeship, bad food, sleepless nights and boredom interrupted by violence. But this account is distinguished by Kenderian's wry humor and peculiar predicament.
—The New York Times

Kenderian, an Iraqi-American, traces his strange odyssey from American schoolboy to Iraqi soldier and U.S. prisoner of war in this unique and informative autobiography. Kenderian was a permanent U.S. resident when he traveled to Iraq in 1980 to visit his estranged father. While there, Saddam invaded Iran and closed the country's border, stranding Kenderian, who was eventually drafted into the Iraqi navy for three and a half years. After the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, recalling Kenderian to active duty before he could escape. When the landing craft he was on hit a mine in the Persian Gulf-ironically placed by his own unit-the survivors were picked up by an American frigate and the relieved Kenderian became a POW. Because of his flawless English, Kenderian was a favorite of his captors, worked informally as an interpreter and even became romantically involved with a female army reservist. After much diplomatic maneuvering, the self-described "man without a country" was granted "humanitarian parole" and returned to the U.S. Kenderian's decade-long ordeal is a bittersweet story, but after acknowledging his "really bad timing," he eschews the negative for an inspirational account of perseverance and survival. (June)

Strangely compelling memoir by a self-described "man without a country," who relates his survival in and escape from Saddam's war-torn Iraq. Following his parents' acrimonious divorce in 1978, 14-year-old Kenderian left Iraq with his mother and brother for the U.S. Seeking reconciliation with his father, he returned two years later, only to have Iraq's borders close behind him at the outbreak of war with Iran. It lasted eight years; Kenderian ended up securing an engineering degree and serving in the Iraqi Navy. In 1990, after his father's death, he tried to renew his green card, but before the process could be completed, he found himself an unwilling conscript fighting yet another of Saddam's unprovoked wars. During the invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm, Kenderian decided his only chance of returning to the U.S. was to be captured by the Americans. His audacious plan succeeded, but not before a series of bizarre twists and turns more reminiscent of Kafka than Arabian Nights. The author and his frightened, unwilling comrades were sent into battle without sidearms, proper-caliber ammunition for the ship's guns, medicine or sufficient food. Kenderian's boat hit an Iraqi mine and was strafed by an American plane; he became the Gulf War's 23rd prisoner of war. At a succession of POW camps, his captors thought he was a spy, while his fellow captives were suspect of the unusual attention he received from the guards. Sustained by his considerable wits, his deep religious faith, his unlikely love affair with truck-driving American servicewoman Monica and the intercession of family and friends in the outside world, he eventually made his way to his mother's house in California.Kenderian's account is at some points overly guarded; his parents' story and his connection with Monica, for example, should have been discussed in more detail. His prose, an odd mixof world-weariness and naivete, is also problematic. The splendidly preposterous facts overwhelm any infirmities in the telling of this amazing personal history.