«Mesopotamia», destiny of a region victimized by history

Every month, former Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin shares a piece of reading that has struck a chord with him.

At a time when Donald Trump is celebrating the return of American imperialism, Olivier Guez's Mesopotamia evokes the great pages of an obsolete imperialism, the British Empire. Mesopotamia is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling dedicated to the dead of the 1916 blockade of Kut, victims of their leaders« arrogance and contempt for their Ottoman adversaries. »They will not come back to us, those resolute, passionate young men who put their whole heart into it. But will those who sparingly left them to die in their own excrement go to their graves laden with years and honors?"

The novel opens in Basra in March 1916, with the arrival of a brilliant young Englishwoman, a specialist in the languages of the region, an archaeologist and the daughter of an industrial magnate.