When the Kurds came to the world's attention in April 1991, trapped in the mountains between Iraq and Turkey, Texas author/photographer Mary Ann Smothers Bruni was with them. Intrigued by their tenacity, Bruni spent the next two years documenting the Kurds and their ability to adapt and continue their lives under difficult, often tragic, circumstances. The text and photographs of her book Journey through Kurdistan reflect the Kurds' struggle, land, and lifestyle.Kurdistan, the home of twenty-six million Kurds, is located high in the Zagros Mountains where modern Turkey, Iran, and Iraq meet. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed following World War I, the Kurds were its only major ethnic group denied a state, making them the largest nation in the world without a country. Condemned to be a minority in the newly founded countries of the Middle East, Kurds suffered destruction of their villages, murder, pillage, rape, and chemical attacks on civilian settlements. After Saddam Hussein's defeat in the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi Kurds rose up against the Iraqi regime with disastrous consequences.
