When Saddam Hussain became president of Iraq, many Iraqi literati chose to leave the country that had already know war and devastation since at least the 1920s. This led to a sharp distinction in the literature produced by Iraqi authors: on the one hand the literature written inside the country under the dictatorship of Hussain; and, on the other hand novels written outside of Iraq in the freedom of exile by writers and intellectuals who fled the country in the 1970s and 1980s (reference).
- Najm Wālī (1956-, Iraq) – Tall al-Laḥm (2001, English trans. Journey to Tell al-Lahm, 2004). Resembling a road-movie, the two heroes of this novel. Najim and Maʿalī, travel through Iraq to the mysterious Tell al-Lahm in a stolen Mercedes, entertaining each other with fragmented memories and stories. They are chasing Wajiha, Najim’s wife who ran away with another man while he was serving in Kuwait, and Asiyad, Wajiha’s husband. The description of their journey presents the reader a sharp criticism on the dictatorship of the Saddam regime: an Iraq uprooted by war where nobody is who they pretend to be, and everybody is suspicious.
- Sinān Anṭūn (1967-, Iraq) – Iʿjam (2002, English trans. Iʿjam: An Iraqi Rhapsody, 2006). When in the archives of the Iraqi interior ministry handwritten notes are found, an employee is tasked with transcribing them into a legible document. What results is a fictional prison memoir of an Iraqi literature student, Furāt, who was imprisoned in the times of Saddam Hussain in the 1980s. His manuscript, however, is marked with footnotes by the employee that corrects and adds to Furāt’s ironic jokes and observations (reference) (also in G: Dysfunctional Governance: Prison Literature and Torture).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ikram Masmoudi. 2015. War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, p. 9
- Mahmoud Tawfik. 2009. “Sinan Antoon’s ‘I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody’ A Literary Daring Deed.” www.qantara.de, 3 July 2009, https://qantara.de/en/article/sinan-antoons-ijaam-iraqi-rhapsody-literary-daring-deed (last accessed 12 July 2024)