Record Number: 33579

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'He had the daily paper folded under his arm with his forage cap or sidara, and his latchkey, as long and as heavy, and in fact an exact duplicate of mine, in his hand. Having climbed to my room, smoked a cigarette, drunk a cup of coffee and exchanged the news of the day, he would open the paper out upon my table and lead me, with many halts and interruptions, through the Baghdad journalist' flowers of invective, chiefly directed against our British crimes. It was the fashionable thing to be anti-British in Baghdad at the time.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Nov 1929 and 31 Dec 1929

Country:

Iraq

Time

daytime

Place:

city: Baghdad
specific address: 11/186 Amara Quarter
location in dwelling: drawing room

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Listener:

Freya Stark

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

31 Jan 1893

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Travel writer

Religion:

Christian

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

Iraq

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

[Anon] [Anon]

Title:

[unknown]

Genre:

Politics, Arabic language Baghdad newspaper

Form of Text:

Print: Newspaper

Publication Details

Baghdad, 1929

Provenance

read in situ
Shared reading and listening with Nasir Effendi

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Source Information:

Record ID:

33579

Source:

Print

Author:

Freya Stark

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Baghdad Sketches: Journeys through Iraq

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

1937

Vol:

n/a

Page:

27

Additional Comments:

Pagination is from the 2011 IB Tauris edition. The book was first published by John Murray in London in 1937.

Citation:

Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches: Journeys through Iraq, (London, 1937), p. 27, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=33579, accessed: 13 March 2025

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Additional Comments:

Dame Freya Madeline Stark, Mrs Perowne, (31 January 1893 – 9 May 1993) was a British explorer and travel writer. The regular shared reading of the Baghdad Arabic press with Nasir Effendi was as much designed for intelligence gathering as to strengthen her Arabic. Stark was working as a journalist for the English language Baghdad Times in this period, and lived in the Amara district