Books, tears and blood

You can read Saad Eskander's diary for March here. Amid his description of his attempt to live a normal life in Baghdad, he covers the bombing of the Al-Mutanabi book market: "Tens of thousands of papers were flying high, as if the sky was raining books, tears and blood."

The last chance

The National Library of Baghdad's brave chief, Saad Eskander, has been keeping a diary while the city falls apart around him. In the latest instalment he tells the agonising story of his frantic efforts to save the life of one of his librarians, who had been kidnapped.

Of the new security plan for Baghdad he writes that he told his brother how it "represented the last chance for us, and if it failed, it would be the end of the country and the escalation of the sectarian civil war on unprecedented level."

Saad Eskander's diary

Saad Eskander is the Director of Iraq's National Library and Archives. The British Library has been publishing his diary monthly. Here, rather belatedly, is January's instalment.