The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 (sometimes called the Second Gulf War) consisted of troops entering Iraq and fighting the Iraqi military, eventually overthrowing the government. The US and its allies thereafter occupied Iraq and were opposed by an insurgency. Violence in the country declined from 2007 onwards and the US gradually reduced its military presence completing its withdrawal in 2011.
After the overthrow of the Baʾthist regime and the occupation of Iraq, state sponsored censorship was uplifted. However, this was accompanied with an unprecedented level of violence and infrastructural chaos. Other than the ‘invisible enemy’ of the (first) Gulf War (see 1990-1991 Iraq invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War), the war during the occupation was fought through battles on the ground with visible American soldiers (reference). But the war was also fought between unknown sectarian lords and different militias. Among Iraqi writers, the American intervention triggered the emergence of resistance and anti-occupation literature.
Furthermore, the invasion of Iraq was motivated outside Iraq through a discourse on ‘the war on terror’, the war on an enemy framed as barbaric, ignorant, and violent. This framing was reflected on in Iraqi literature by questioning this identity and its relationship to decades of life under threat and occupation.
The fall of the Saddam regime allowed for Iraqis to return to their homeland, which resulted in Iraqi literature depicting the situation after the 2003 US-led intervention. Themes of these novels include the condemning of the spread of violence, killing and kidnapping in occupied Baghdad, and the uncovering of corruption and moral bankruptcy of the entire society and its occupiers (reference).
- In the analogy Iraq +100 (2016, eds. Ḥassan Blāsim), 10 short stories are collected that reflect the imagination of what several writers think Iraq will look like 100 years after the US-led invasion, in the year 2103. Among the writers are ʿAlī Badr, Ḥassan ʿAbdulrazzak, Jalāl Ḥasan and Zhrā al-Ḥabūbī. They are translated by different translators. The short stories are written in a range of genres, from science fiction to allegory and magical realism (also in S: Speculative Fiction: Science Fiction: On Earth).
- Shākir al-Anbārī (1958-, Baghdad) – Najmat al-Battāwīn (‘The star of al-Battāwīn’, 2010). This novel offers a picture of decaying Baghdad after the US occupation of 2003, focusing on the sectarian war, kidnappings, killings, and rule of militias from 2006 until 2008. It is set in the al-Battāwīn neighborhood, which changed from a calm area to the home of gangs and criminals. Illustrative of this metamorphosis are also the main characters, a group of people from the cultural and press milieu who feel helpless and useless and meet in a building they call ‘Najma’ to reminisce, drink, and have sex with a prostitute named Aḥlām (reference) (also in C: Cities: Iraq: Baghdad).
- Sinān Antūn (1967-, Iraq) – Fihris (‘Index’, 2016) and Waḥdaha Shajarat al-Rummān (2010, English trans. The Corpse Washer, 2013).
This first novel takes place after the US-led invasion, when the Iraqi Numayyir settles in the US with his family and starts to teach Arabic. When he travels to Iraq again for a documentary on US presence in the country, he meets a strange bookseller named Wadūd who is obsessed with taking notes on Iraqi daily life. Upon return to, Numayyir writes a novel about Wadūd’s work, through which here calls Iraqi’s history, especially after the US invasion, as well as his own relationship to the US presence, such as his refusal to teach US soldiers the imperative form of the Arabic verb (reference).
Waḥdaha Shajarat al-Rummān depicts the young Jawād, who must abandon his studies to become a sculptor to return to his ancestral and intricate work as Shiite corpse washer when the corpses pile up in an Iraq, including that of his father, as sectarian killings and the culture of violence and death prevails. The novel gives an often grim and detailed picture of Iraq during the sectarian violence following 2003 US-led invasion (also in D: Death: Death).
- ʿAwwād ʿAlī (?, Iraq) – Halīb al-Mārinz (‘The milk of marines’, 2008). This novel deals with the disappointment and distress exiled authors experience when they return to Iraq, their homeland which they often imagined about.
- Inʿām Kachachī (1952-, Iraq) – al-Ḥafīdah al-Amrīkiyyah (2008, English trans. The American Granddaughter, 2009). This novel depicts the physical and emotion devastation of Iraq after the US-led invasion though the eyes of Zīna, an American with Iraqi origins who returns to Iraq as a US-embedded translator providing cultural advice. When she is also involved in several raids, she feels caught between two identities and between loyalty and duty. The title of the book refers to the fact that Zīna must hide from her own grandmother that she works with ‘the occupiers’, with whom she becomes disillusioned when American marines abuse her while she tries to do her job (reference) (also in Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Translation).
- ʿĀliyyah Mamdūḥ (1944-, Iraq) –al-Tashahhī (‘Yearning’, 2007). This novel links the masculinity of the main protagonist quit literally to the invasion of Iraq by American troops. Sarmad, an Iraqi translator living in exile in Paris, discovers that his male sex is shrinking until he almost loses it completely (due to his weight gain) and that he has become impotent. Following this discovery, Sarmad recalls his many previous lovers and life in Baghdad while he also receives treatment by his friend Yūsuf in a spiritual and diet center in Paris and tries to understand his crisis. The loss of his manhood is linked to losing his homeland Iraq and any potential political role in it (reference) (also in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Physical Disabilities: Impotence and Castration).
- Shākir Nūrī (1959-, Iraq) – al-Minṭaqah al-Khaḍrāʾ (‘The Green Zone’, 2009) and Majānīn Būkā (‘The madmen of Camp Bucca’, 2012).
al-Minṭaqah al-Khaḍrāʾ is set in the area named ‘Green Zone’ (note), used by American troops as their safe haven, where music and alcohol are abundant. The novel depicts the story of five Iraqi translators, who enter and leave the camp each day, and their contradictory stance towards the occupier: while they are friendly on the surface, they are silently dominated by tensions and hatred (reference).
Based on the testimonies of camp survivors, Majānīn Būkā focuses on the US supervised detention camp ‘Camp Bucca’ (note) in the Iraqi desert. The story is narrated by a survivor who is contracted by an American film crew to make a movie about his three-year experience in the camp (reference). Among the written observations is the dividing of camp prisoners into different sectarian groups, the increased influence of radical Islam and the violence between prisoners which is encouraged by American soldiers. The novel furthermore describes the different methods of torture implemented in the camp, especially using music and the sun as mechanisms (also in D: Dysfunctional Governance: Prison literature and Torture: Infamous Prisons: US Detention Camps).
- Iqbāl Qazwīnī (?, Iraq) – Mamarrāt al-Sukūn (2005, English trans. Zubaida’s Window: A novel of Iraqi Exile, 2008). This novel describes the melancholic existence of a middle-aged Iraqi woman named Zubaydah in East Berlin during the invasion. During the novel the narrator has flashbacks to her long exile in East Germany which intermingle with the trauma of war (reference).
- Saʿad Muḥammad Raḥīm (1957 – 2018, Iraq) – Muqtal Bāʾiʿa al-Kutub (2016, ‘The booksellers murder’). The Iraqi journalist Majīd Baghdādī, is sent to Bāqūba, north of Baghdād, to investigate and write a book on the death of the bookseller and artist Maḥmūd al-Marzūq. He discovers the diary of the diseased, which contains notes recording life in the city since the US-led occupation, and letters to his French girlfriend, who he had a relationship with when he was a refugee in France. Despite all this information, the reason behind the bookseller’s death remains a mystery.
- Riverbend (?, Iraq) – Baghdad Burning (2005). Riverbend, an anonymous, probably female, blogger from Baghdad, started to blog about her life after the invasion. The blog posts are mostly between 2003 and 2004, and describe power blackouts, explosions and their opinions on the Iraqi interim government, the Bush administration, and Islamic fundamentalists. Riverbend stopped posting regularly in 2007 with exception of one post in 2013, ten years after the 2003 invasion.
- Aḥmad Saʿadāwī (1973-, Iraq) – Frānkishtāyn fī Baghdād (2013, English trans. Frankenstein in Baghdad, 2018). This novel refers to Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein story to portray the horrors that have wracked Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Hero of the story, Hādi al-Attag, a junk dealer, wounders the streets during the Iraqi war looking for body parts of those killed to sew them together. But when the soul of a hotel security guard who died in a car bomb enters the body, it turns into a terrifying creature revenging the murders of ‘all his parts’ (reference). The novel won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014 (also in S: Speculative Fiction: Science Fiction: On Earth).
- Burhān Shāwī (1955-, Iraq) – Mashraḥat Baghdad (‘The morgue of Baghdad’, 2012). This nightmarish novel portrays Baghdad as a morgue full of cadavers. All its main characters (the males are all named Adam, and the females Eve) are victims of daily killing. During the night the cadavers wake up and tell the terrifying stories of their killings.
- Najm Wālī (1956-, Iraq) – Baghdad Mālbūrū (‘Baghdad Marlboro’, 2012). Set after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, this novel tells of an American lieutenant, Daniel Brooks, who returns to Iraq to try and meet the families of the victims he buried alive in the desert during the 1991 Gulf War to express repentance. However, when he is abducted by militiamen, his former Iraqi companion (the narrator) is confronted with the choice to either kill the American or be killed (see also in 1990 – 1991 Iraq Invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War: 1991 Gulf War).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ikram Masmoudi. 2015. War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction. p. 16
- D. Wasan Murshid. 2018. “Wathīqa Sardiyah.. Qirāʾah fī Riwāyah: Najmah al-Battāwīn li-Shākir al-Anbārī.” www.almothaqaf.com, 7 November 2018, https://www.almothaqaf.com/b2/932147 (last accessed 2 February 2018)
- Ḥussayn, Ḥaytham. 2016. “‘Fihris’ Riwāyah Dhākir Jarīḥah Bayna Baghdād wa-Nīwyūrk.” www.aljazeera.net, 24 March 2016, https://www.aljazeera.net/news/cultureandart/2016/3/24/%D9%81%D9%87%D8%B1%D8%B3-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%B0%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AD%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A8%D8%BA%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AF (last accessed 21 November 2021)
- Ikram Masmoudi. 2015. War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction. p. 136, 160
- Johanna Sellman. 2016. “The Ghosts of Exilic Belongings: Maḥmūd al- Bayyātī’s Raqs ʿalā al- māʾ: aḥlām waʿrah and Post- Soviet Themes in Arabic Exile Literature.” JAL 47: 111-137, p. 122
- Rachel S. Cordasco. 2018. “‘Frankenstein in Baghdad’ by Ahmed Saadaqi.” www.worldliteraturetoday.org, January 2018, https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2018/january/frankenstein-baghdad-ahmed-saadawi (last accessed 7 September 2023)
- Rachel S. Cordasco. 2018. “‘Frankenstein in Baghdad’ by Ahmed Saadaqi.” www.worldliteraturetoday.org, January 2018, https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2018/january/frankenstein-baghdad-ahmed-saadawi (last accessed 7 September 2023)