CHICK LIT MEMOIR
Former BBC World Service journalist Bee Rowlatt and Iraqi teacher May Witwit have joined forces to share their story of a friendship forged between London and Baghdad. The summary of Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad says: "Would you brave gun-toting militias for a cut and blow dry? May's a tough-talking, hard-smoking lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mum of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house. They should have nothing in common. But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion and age. . . . And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad." Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad is out in February.