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May 16, 2012 Princeton Alumni Weekly • paw.princeton.edu
Wartime incidents in Iraq inspire
novel, master’s study for officer
Benjamin Buchholz GS spent a year during 2005–06 in the Iraqi village of Safwan
as an Army civil-affairs officer with his Wisconsin National Guard unit. On his second
day on the job, a young Iraqi girl was crushed by a semi-truck as she ran after a
water bottle that one of the drivers had thrown out to children along the road.
Buchholz, a captain at the time, arrived on the scene soon after the accident. The
horror of that event and another that
Army Maj. Benjamin
year — the bombing of an American
Buchholz is pursuing
convoy in which two soldiers died —
a master’s degree in
stayed with him.
Near Eastern studies.
Buchholz, who arrived at Princeton
last September to begin work on
a master’s degree in Near Eastern
studies while he is on active duty,
drew on his wartime experiences to
craft the novel One Hundred and One
Nights, published by Back Bay Books
in December.
In the book, he explores what life
is like for people who have gone
through three wars in the last 30
years and live with an American
presence. The book asks what might
lead someone to perpetrate a bombing.
The Washington Post called One
Hundred and One Nights “a seductive,
compelling first novel that depicts
war as intimate and subtle.”
The narrator of the novel is Abu
Saheeh, an Iraqi native who had lived
in the United States but recently has arrived in Safwan. He befriends Layla, a poor
girl of about 13, who likes American popular culture and regularly stops by his
shop as she roams the market area. Abu Saheeh, who seems to be running from a
painful past, becomes involved in a mysterious plot.
Buchholz’s unit in Iraq was in charge of escorting American military-supply convoys
from the border crossing with Kuwait to American bases throughout Iraq. As
a civil-affairs officer, Buchholz tried to help the people deal with issues such as
acquiring more electrical power and drinking water. But it took him so long to
understand the governmental system and the culture in the village that by the time
he felt he had some good ideas to improve the situation, his year was up.
Buchholz decided that he needed to further study Middle East culture and history
and entered the Army Foreign Area Officer Program, which involves language
study, cultural immersion and regional travel, and a master’s degree.
Even as he’s engaged in academic work, he’s working on another novel and
writes a blog called Not Quite Right: Observations on Life in the Middle East and
North Africa. “Writing helps me in no small way to process and internalize the
things I’m learning about in school,” Buchholz said.
He aims to gain and share a better understanding of Middle East culture. “There’s
a lack of understanding in America of [that] culture,” he said. “We get way too
much through 20-second news blurbs and not enough that has the depth and
richness that can let us see what life is like over there from somebody else’s
perspective.” π By K.F.G.
NERINE KERFERS