Excerpted with permission from Wounded Tigris: A River Journey Through the Cradle of Civilization, by Leon McCarron, published November 2023 by Pegasus Books. Our boat left Amara in semidarkness and the city slipped away with ease, taken by the reeds. As light flooded the day, ducks and geese joined us in the current. Occasionally we passed factories making bricks, their chimneys exhaling black smoke that diffused the sky. This was about the worst job in Iraq, said Salman. It was hot, hard, noxious, and badly paid. Every time we went…
