Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: An Anthology (Middle East Literature In Translation)
Language: English
Pages: 202
ISBN: 0815609027
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
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.
whispered was one that plants and birds shared. Her trances enabled her to rein in time and lead it wherever she wanted it to go. Challenges like these pleased her and enabled her to be what she wanted every morning. She could be the sum of things and needed no help from others. The self she saw in the mirrors of her dreams was the self she would stand by. She bent and cut a weed with yellow fragrant flowers. She didn't know the name of the flower, but its scent gave away its secret. Then she
untouched by water. Not a single drop there. She looks around, dazzled. She tries to recognize the place. There and then she sees him on that ancient bicycle, speeding toward her. He stops in front of her, gets down, and starts to reproach her, breathlessly, "You sit here enjoying the sea breeze while I rove around looking for you!" He pulls up his mailbag and lets the bicycle drop onto the sand. "Here, take this!" He gives her a letter. "And this!" His hand goes into the bag again. "And a third
in her overpowering femininity. "What are you looking at?" I moved away from the lure of her maddening body, her head falling off my shoulder. She approached again: "What is it you're staring at? I don't see a thing out of the usual." "I'm looking at the old painter displaying his art." "You must be delirious!" "I know he's not there .... I know he's been bedridden since he fell sick, but I can't help visualizing him right there. A thin body topped by a bright, graying head." "Leave the
roads, and the glimpse of a distant sea. We were silent as if in prayer. A moment later the branches quivered, the leaves fluttered, and the wind blew among the trees. I found myself there with him inside the forest. We walked on ground covered by withering, falling foliage that kept cracking beneath out feet. "Look at that huge tree on your right." A colossal tree stood there, its thick and overlapping roots were sunk deep into the soil but were still smooth and glistening with raindrops, as if
thinking of you," he added. "I thought of nothing but you. This is the first time anything like this has happened to me, and I have no explanation for it. If you don't believe me, forget what I just said. I'll wait for you at the nursery tomorrow morning anyway. Ten o'clock." The nursery was a paradise of sorts, and I said so as we walked around numerous shrubs and plants. Leaves all shades of green, creeks brimming with water, birds chirping in the trees, flowers in dazzling colors and shapes.