With Ash on their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State. Released October 24. Cover art by Molly Crabapple
With Ash on Their Faces
“This book is the best kind of humanist journalism: lucid, transparent, grimly realistic.… No book has covered it better.” - Los Angeles Review of Books
"Contemporary testimony [grounded in a] wealth of historical context ... an urgently necessary chronicle of the Yazidi genocide" - Times Literary Supplement
"An intense and morally needed chronicle of the Yazidis’ battle for survival, providing evidence for one of the most brutal acts of barbarity of this century and, from this, perhaps leading to something verging on accountability ... An intelligent depiction of Yazidi women’s ongoing resilience, suffering and survival […] Despite the distressing nature of the testimonies, perhaps another remarkable aspect of the book is the delicacy, free from sensationalism or excess, with which Otten approaches the narratives.” - London School of Economics
"Otten’s writing interlaces centuries-old practices with first-hand accounts of indelible pain, delivering a book that is both timely and historical – revealing a side of the secretive community that most readers are unlikely to have heard of. The heart of the book is rooted in reporting that is exhaustive, incredibly lucid and thorough. The author recounts the fear and anguish of the Yazidis in minute detail, walks the reader through the women’s terrifying journeys and finally looks to the future. - The National
“Otten's solid work deepens our understanding of a complex clash of ethnicities and religions.” - Kirkus review
"Deeply reported ... a sensitive account that Otten pieces together unsentimentally and unsensationally." - Hurriyet Daily News
"[A] Stark, shocking book" - New Internationalist, One of the magazine's Ten Best Books of December 2017
"Excellent" - New Humanist.
"This is an intelligent and perceptive book about one of the great tragedies of our age. It is also an inspiring story of resistance and survival that everybody should read." - Patrick Cockburn, Middle East Correspondent for the Independent and author of The Rise of the Islamic State: ISIS and the new Sunni Revolution.
"There are two constants in the modern history of genocides: they are recognized too late and their victims, particularly if they are women, are presented as passive sufferers. Cathy Otten's important and morally urgent book tells the story of a on-going crime and a history of strength and resistance. Told with great care but with neither sentiment nor sensationalism, With Ash on the Faces, needs to be read by all those who care about justice -- and by those too occupied with global power to care" - Lyndsey Stonebridge, Professor of Modern Literature & History at the University of East Anglia and author of the Judicial Imagination: Writing After Nuremberg.
"Otten tells the Yazidis' remarkable story with a deft and detailed hand in this revealing account of suffering, endurance and survival. An essential read for anyone interested in the plight and resilience of one of Iraq's most persecuted minorities." - Anthony Loyd, Foreign Correspondent for the Times and author of My War Gone By, I Miss It So.
"Woven through with heart-breaking, terrifying accounts of its survivors, and demanding an understanding of their community’s historical persecution, Otten’s searing chronicle of ISIS’ genocide of the Yezidis is compelling and devastatingly necessary." - Sareta Ashraph, former Chief Analyst with the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, the UN's Inquiry on Libya, and prior to that, Legal Adviser to the Office of the Public Counsel for the Defense in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Awards
One World Media New Voice Award 2018
One World Media Print Finalist 2018
Kurt Schork Courage in Journalism Finalist 2018