Despite the endless coverage of suicide bombings and Sunni-Shiite divides, how much do we actually know about Iraq? How many Iraqi voices have we heard since the fateful invasion began, more than six years ago? Reading Leilah Nadir's beautifully written memoir The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family made me yearn to know more about this ancient land and its long-suffering people.

Nadir is Iraqi-Canadian, but she has never actually been to Iraq; her father left Baghdad in 1960, never to return. Since that time, the country has been brutally ravaged by a series of wars, and various other relatives have fled to the West, oppressed by poverty and fear. The book is an attempt to re-connect with this heritage before it's too late, by plumbing the memories of her father and aunts and the family members who are still in Iraq, who describe in loving detail the relatively prosperous and secular world of the 1940s and '50s, and the horrible process by which the country has been dismantled since. Parallel to this Nadir tells two other stories: the history of her family in Iraq, going back to the Turkish period and the first British invasion, and a chronicle of the more recent American invasion and occupation.

This raw synopsis makes the book sound horribly depressing, but Nadir is such a fine and sympathetic writer that it is impossible not be swept along with her family saga. Her description, for instance, of being in Baghdad through the "shock and awe" bombing campaign is heart-stopping; her cousin Karim tells of standing in a doorway for 12 straight hours while the whole house shook and the tiles danced across the floor, and he had to give his wife sedatives to stop her shaking. Nadir hears this story over the phone; then Karim changes topics and starts asking her about her personal life, and why she isn't writing something more upbeat, like a love story.

The result is deeply moving, sad and elegiac but with an odd under-current of hope, mostly because the people we meet are so lovely and dignified. These are educated, middle class, sophisticated people (many of whom are Christian) being ground down by huge forces they cannot control. And for which-lest we forget-we in the West are largely responsible.

The Orange Trees of Baghdad is a very fine read, and one that will forever alter your view of Iraq. The cover includes a recommendation from Naomi Klein, who is quoted as saying that it teaches us that "Iraq is a country, not a war." That puts it beautifully.

Leilah Nadir will be reading from The Orange Trees of Baghdad at The Abbey Bookshop, rue de le Parcheminerie, Paris 75005, at 8 pm on Wednesday 20 May; there will be wine and hors d'oeuvres. Telephone 01 46 33 75 00 for more info.

The book will be published in French in September, by Editions Payot et Rivages.