In 2012 I read an article on an Iraqi news site about a small, historic town in Iraqi Kurdistan that was battling to save its architectural and cultural heritage from unregulated development amid economic hardship. The town was called al-Amadiya, or Amedi, and the accompanying picture of it was amazing, showing buildings crammed together on…
I’m more proud of this story than of most things I’ve done recently. I first came across David Dorr in Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book on Jerusalem. Montefiore mentions Dorr in passing: “One unique American visitor, David Dorr, a young black slave from Louisiana who called himself a ‘quadroon’, agreed with Flaubert: on tour with his…