2018 novels by Iraqi authors, and why they matter
(From Book Riot. Link to the complete article given below)
If you scour the internet for Iraqi novels, you’ll find dozens of lists and list-essays. But these pieces—15 Great Books About Iraq, Afghanistan or The Iraq Novel We’ve Been Waiting For or I’m Not the Enemy or A Reading List of Modern War Stories—give us the perspective of the US soldier, journalist, and aid worker.
What they tell us very little about is Iraq.
Two years after the invasion, in 2005, USA Today reported that more than 300 books had been published in English about the war and ongoing occupation. By now, an Amazon search turns up more than 3,800. A number of them have been critically and commercially successful: American Sniper, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, War Stories, Redeployment, Yellow Birds.
Yet in the first ten years after the invasion, exceptionally few novels by Iraqi authors had been published in English.
That has been changing. This year, we saw the publication of Muhsin al-Ramli’s The President’s Gardens, translated by Luke Leafgren; the sci-fi collection Iraq + 100, edited by Hassan Blasim and Ra Page; and Baghdad Eucharist, by Sinan Antoon, translated by Maia Tabet. There are novels by Iraqi authors now. Here’s some of the best.
