The Watermelon Boys

The Watermelon Boys PDF Author: Ruqaya Izzidien
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 1617979007
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
It is the winter of 1915 and Iraq has been engulfed by the First World War. Hungry for independence from Ottoman rule, Ahmad leaves his peaceful family life on the banks of the Tigris to join the British-led revolt. Thousands of miles away, Welsh teenager Carwyn reluctantly enlists and is sent, via Gallipoli and Egypt, to the Mesopotamia campaign. Carwyn’s and Ahmad’s paths cross, and their fates are bound together. Both are forever changed, not only by their experience of war, but also by the parallel discrimination and betrayal they face. Ruqaya Izzidien’s evocative debut novel is rich with the heartbreak and passion that arise when personal loss and political zeal collide, and offers a powerful retelling of the history of British intervention in Iraq.

The Watermelon Boys

The Watermelon Boys PDF Author: Ruqaya Izzidien
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 1617979007
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
It is the winter of 1915 and Iraq has been engulfed by the First World War. Hungry for independence from Ottoman rule, Ahmad leaves his peaceful family life on the banks of the Tigris to join the British-led revolt. Thousands of miles away, Welsh teenager Carwyn reluctantly enlists and is sent, via Gallipoli and Egypt, to the Mesopotamia campaign. Carwyn’s and Ahmad’s paths cross, and their fates are bound together. Both are forever changed, not only by their experience of war, but also by the parallel discrimination and betrayal they face. Ruqaya Izzidien’s evocative debut novel is rich with the heartbreak and passion that arise when personal loss and political zeal collide, and offers a powerful retelling of the history of British intervention in Iraq.

Pluralism in the Iraqi Novel after 2003

Pluralism in the Iraqi Novel after 2003 PDF Author: Ronen Zeidel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498594638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Pluralism in the Iraqi Novel is about the use of literature and the novel to express the new content of an Iraqi national identity constructed after the American invasion of 2003. Instead of the homogenizing national identity in Iraqi literature created before 2003, postoccupation literature presents Iraqi society as a kaleidoscope of multiple religious identities converging in an accommodating Iraqi national identity. The author argues that this could not have happened without the upheaval of 2003 and its consequent results: democracy and political restructuring that incorporated Shia for the first time into the ruling political coalition in recognition of their numerical majority. Literature was consequential to processing the complicated subject of Shia-Sunni relations and the sectarian identity of each and, even more, in the wake of the geopolitical events of 2003, literature was instrument in bringing representation of the Kurds, the small minorities, and even the last Jews of Iraq to the fore. As such, literature demonstrated its revolutionary power and formed the basis for a “New Iraq.”

Iraqi Novel

Iraqi Novel PDF Author: Fabio Caiani
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748685251
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Looks in depth at four authors - Abd al-Malik Nuri, Gha'ib Tu'ma Farman, Mahdi Isa al-Saqr and Fu'ad al-Takarli - who started writing in Iraq in or around the 1950s to explore a pivotal moment in Iraqi novel writing and a neglected area of postcolonial fi

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq PDF Author: Dunya Mikhail
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 0811226131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
The true story of a beekeeper who risks his life to rescue enslaved women from Daesh Since 2014, Daesh (ISIS) has been brutalizing the Yazidi people of northern Iraq: sowing destruction, killing those who won’t convert to Islam, and enslaving young girls and women. The Beekeeper, by the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail, tells the harrowing stories of several women who managed to escape the clutches of Daesh. Mikhail extensively interviews these women—who’ve lost their families and loved ones, who’ve been sexually abused, psychologically tortured, and forced to manufacture chemical weapons—and as their tales unfold, an unlikely hero emerges: a beekeeper, who uses his knowledge of the local terrain, along with a wide network of transporters, helpers, and former cigarette smugglers, to bring these women, one by one, through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, back into safety. In the face of inhuman suffering, this powerful work of nonfiction offers a counterpoint to Daesh’s genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk their own lives to save those of others.

Contemporary Iraqi Fiction

Contemporary Iraqi Fiction PDF Author: Shakir Mustafa
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815654456
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The first anthology of its kind in the West, Contemporary Iraqi Fiction gathers work from sixteen Iraqi writers, all translated from Arabic into English. Shedding a bright light on the rich diversity Iraqi experience, Shakir Mustafa has included selections by Iraqi women, Iraqi Jews now living in Israel, and Christians and Muslims living both in Iraq and abroad. While each voice is distinct, they are united in writing about a homeland that has suffered under repression, censorship, war, and occupation. Many of the selections mirror these grim realities, forcing the writers to open up new narrative terrains and experiment with traditional forms. Muhammad Khodayyir’s surrealist portraits of his home city, Basra, in an excerpt from Basriyyatha and the magical realism of Mayselun Hadi’s “Calendars” both offer powerful expressions of the absurdity of everyday life. Themes range from childhood and family to war, political oppression, and interfaith relationships. Mustafa provides biographical sketches for the writers and an enlightening introduction, chronicling the evolution of Iraqi literature.

IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq

IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq PDF Author: IraqiGirl
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608460800
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
I feel that I have been sleeping all my life and I have woken up and opened my eyes to the world. A beautiful world! But impossible to live in. These are the words of fifteen-year-old Hadiya, blogging from the city of Mosul, Iraq, to let the world know what life is really like as the military occupation of her country unfolds. In many ways, her life is familiar. She worries about exams and enjoys watching Friends during the rare hours that the electricity in her neighborhood is running. But the horrors of war surround her everywhere—weeklong curfews, relatives killed, and friends whose families are forced to flee their homes. With black humor and unflinching honesty, Hadiya shares the painful stories of lives changed forever. “Let’s go back,” she writes, “to my un-normal life.” With her intimate reflections on family, friendship, and community, IraqiGirl also allows us to witness the determination of one girl not only to survive, but to create, amidst the devastation of war, a future worth living for. "Hadiya's authentically teenage voice, emotional struggles and concerns make her story all the more resonant." —Publishers Weekly “Despite all the news coverage about the war in Iraq, very little is reported about how it affects the daily lives of ordinary citizens. A highschooler in the city of Mosul fills in the gap with this compilation of her blog posts about living under U.S. occupation. She writes in English because she wants to reach Americans, and in stark specifics, she records the terrifying dangers of car bombs on her street and American warplanes overhead, as well as her everyday struggles to concentrate on homework when there is no water and electricity at home. Her tone is balanced: she does not hate Americans, and although she never supported Saddam Hussein, she wonders why he was executed... Readers will appreciate the details about family, friends, school, and reading Harry Potter, as well as the ever-present big issues for which there are no simple answers." —Hazel Rochman, Booklist “IraqiGirl has poured reflections of her daily life into her blog, reaching all over the cyber-world from her home in northern Iraq. She writes about the universals of teen life—school, family, TV, food, Harry Potter—but always against the background of sudden explosions, outbursts of gunfire, carbombs, death.… [A]n important addition to multicultural literature.” —Elsa Marston, author of Santa Claus in Baghdad and Other Stories About Teens in the Arab World “A book as relevant to adults as teenagers and children. Hadiya’s clear, simple language conveys the feelings of a teenager, offering a glimpse into the daily life of a professional middle-class Iraqi family in an ancient-modern city subjected to a brutal occupation.” —Haifa Zangana, author of City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance

I'jaam

I'jaam PDF Author: Sinan Antoon
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 9780872864573
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
A risky and risqué prison memoir depicts the collective nightmare of life under Saddam.

The Last of the Angels

The Last of the Angels PDF Author: Fadhil al-Azzawi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416570306
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
From a legendary writer both beloved and banished by Iraq -- a fine work of Arabic literature in the vein of Naguib Mahfouz and Elias Khoury, and a magical and moving comic novel about the birth of modern Iraq. Kirkuk, Iraq, the 1950s. The day Hameed Nylon loses his job, and gains an unfortunate nickname, is the day that his life begins: dismissed as a chauffeur when rumors surface that he propositioned his British boss's posh-tart wife, Hameed finds his true calling as a revolutionary in an Iraq that is destined for a sea change. Also bent on bucking the system is Hameed's brother-in-law, the money-scheming butcher Khidir Musa, who runs off suddenly to Russia to find two brothers who have been missing since World War I. And the key to their fate is held by a seven-year-old boy, Burhan Abdallah, who stumbles upon an old chest in his attic that allows him to speak with three white-robed old men, beings who inform him that they are, in fact, angels.

Baghdad Noir

Baghdad Noir PDF Author: Muhsin al-Ramli
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617756547
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This unique anthology of Iraqi noir fiction collects fourteen original stories of crime, conspiracy, regret, and revenge in the capital of Iraq. The centuries-old city of Baghdad has known many rulers, many troubles, and many crimes. But while most Iraqis would agree that their life has always been noir, there has not been a literary tradition to capture this aspect of the culture. By commissioning the fourteen stories collected here—most by Iraqi writers, all by authors familiar with Baghdad—editor Samuel Shimon and Akashic Books have created what may be the first anthology of Iraqi crime fiction ever assembled. Here you will read of life in Baghdad both during and after the Saddam Hussein era, with stories of fear in the shadow of a ruthless dictator; kidnappings in the time of U.S. occupation; detectives who investigate political conspiracies; and tales of revenge, assassination, mental illness, and family struggle in the war-torn City of Peace. Baghdad Noir includes brand-new stories by Sinan Antoon, Ali Bader, Mohammed Alwan Jabr, Nassif Falak, Dheya al-Khalidi, Hussain al-Mozany, Layla Qasrany, Hayet Raies, Muhsin al-Ramli, Ahmed Saadawi, Hadia Said, Salima Salih, Salar Abdoh, and Roy Scranton.

The Corpse Washer

The Corpse Washer PDF Author: Sinan Antoon
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190603
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Born into a family of corpse washers, Jawad abandons tradition by enrolling in Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts to study sculpting, but the conditions caused by Saddam Hussein's oppressive rule force a return home to the family business.