It arrived for me in Beirut under plain cover, a brown envelope containing a small, glossy paperback in Arabic, accompanied by a note from an Egyptian friend. "Robert!" it began. "Did you really write this?"The front cover bore a photograph of Saddam Hussein in the dock in Baghdad, the left side of his head in colour, the right side bleached out, wearing a black sports jacket but with no tie, holding a Koran in his right hand. "Saddam Hussein," the cover said in huge letters. "From Birth to Martyrdom." And then there was the author's name – in beautiful, calligraphic typeface and in gold in the top, right-hand corner. "By Robert Fisk."
Sounds like something you'd do, Robert.
Needless to say, I noticed one or two problems with this book. It took a very lenient view of the brutality of Saddam,
(just like you, Robert)
it didn't seem to care much about the gassed civilians of Halabja –
(neither do a lot of other people in the "antiwar" movement)
and it was full of the kind of purple passages which I
Ok, Robert, gotta give you that one. That sounds more like Barbara Streisand.
Dare I suggest to readers that this kind of cliche doesn't sound like Robert Fisk?
But it does sound like Robert Fisk.
The only war drums I could hear were those of my own astonishment. For I never wrote this book.
But you could have! It's your style.
It wasn't plagiarism – a common practice in Cairo, which is why I ensure that all my real books are legally published in Arabic in Lebanon. No, this wasn't plagiarism. This was forgery.
Call it "fake but accurate."
Go read the rest. Fiskie's attempts to find the publisher are rather amusing, and even he seems to realize the absurdity of it.