One would expect the harrowing experience of living in Kuwait through seven months of Iraqi occupation to have produced a flood of memoirs. But it's been a mere trickle, perhaps because those who survived the ordeal wish to put it behind them and rebuild normal lives.
As Rajab's title states, she is a Briton; but having married a Kuwaiti and lived in Kuwait for thirty years, she experienced the occupation as a Kuwaiti (that is, she could remain in her own house, without fear of being taken hostage). From this perspective she could observe the Iraqi soldiers, involve herself in Kuwaiti organizations, and participate in the festivities upon liberation. Her story takes on added drama due to the fact that in her husband had built a well-known private museum in the basement of his compound, filled with antique and valuable items. The museum had been open to the public for years and was much-visited; to make matters worse, her husband was out of Kuwait when Saddam Husayn invaded. Will the author succeed in keeping the museum from being pillaged? (Yes, by sealing off most of it and displaying some third-rate items to marauding Iraqi troops.)
First-hand accounts of warfare from the Middle East reveal a pattern of normal life mixed with searing violence (kibbutz children attending school in bunkers; Beirutis at the beach with snipers a few blocks away) and the Kuwait experience is no exception. To those of us not on the scene, this combination remains enduringly mysterious.
