The Book Of Macabre: The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq by Hassan Blasim

Hassan Blasim provides relentless imagery of Iraq as a place where both life and death are extreme, writes Pradyot Lal in Tehelka

Make no mistake about it. This one, with its black-asdeath cover, is horrifyingly surreal. Hassan Blasim’s Iraq is a debased and deadly place, and his stories are just as claustrophobic as the world they describe: the characters are doomed and the plots, even when they start out sunny, end in disaster. Reading it is both exhausting and exciting — exciting in the way this explosive writer breathes life into the stories.