- Ḥassan Blāsim (1973-, Iraq) – Allah 99 (2016, English trans. God 99, 2020). This novel follows Ḥassan Uwl, and Iraqi writer and veterinarian who arrives in Finland as a refugee, where he receives a grant to write a blog titled God 99, on which he shares 99 stories of the world’s most vulnerable (reference). The narrator himself, in the meantime, sits around Finnish bars, plays slot machines, and exchanges letters with an ailing friend. The novel consists of Ḥassan’s conversations with Finns, his letters to the friend, and the interviews he does for the blog (reference).
- Mohammed Dib’s (1920 – 2003, Algeria) trilogy Les terrasses d’Orsol (‘Orsol terrace’, 1985), Le sommeil d’Eve (‘Eve’s slumber’, 1989) and Neiges de marbre (‘The snows of marble’, 1990), deals with mixed relationships, the question of identity, and the theme of odyssey. Drawing inspiration from the author’s frequent travels to Finland and his translations of Finnish Folktales, Dib examines North African – European relations. Set in unspecified Europe, in each work the protagonists are struggling with the difficulty of living in the wake of a geographical displacement and forced to distance from a loved one (reference).
Le Sommeil d’Eve, for example, depicts a woman in Finland who is pregnant and slides into madness, thinking she will turn into a wolf. It draws its premise from “The Wolf’s Bride” by Finnish-Estonian writer Aïno Kallas (reference). Neiges de Marbre looks at the divorce of Nordic-Maghribi couple and their young daughter Lyyl, specifically the father’s missing of his daughter (see in F: Children and Family Life: Parent and Child: Father and Child).
- Azhar Jarjīs (1973- , Iraq) – Al-Nawm fī Ḥaql al-Karz (‘Sleeping in the cherry field’, 2019). This satirical novel tells the story of an Iraq migrant, Saʿīd, who works as a postman in Oslo and is in a relationship with Tunā. When this latter dies, however, he is shocked and becomes isolated, only speaking to his neighbor Jākūb, who, in turn, is living his last days and dreams of being buried in a cherry field (reference). When this connection to the outside world is also lost, Saʿīd receives a letter that the mutilated corpse of his father is found in a mass grave, and he decides to return to Iraq.
- Hawraʾ al-Nadāwi (?, Iraq) – Taḥt Samāʾ Kūbīnhāghin (‘Under the Copenhagen sky’, 2010). In this novel about the life of Iraqi exile in Denmark, Hudā, the novel’s main character, requests from the elderly Iraqi Rāfid to translate her manuscript from Danish to Arabic (reference). The two start to exchange letters and eventually engage in a romantic relationship. As this relationship grows, Rāfid, who did not know Hudā before her letters, notices that she knows more about him than he first thought.
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Marcia Lynx Qualey. 2021. “A different sort of sacred.” www.qantara.de, 25 July 2021, https://qantara.de/en/article/book-review-hassan-blasims-god-99-different-sort-sacred (last accessed 4 January 2023)
- Brigit M. Kaiser. 2012. “The Singularities of Postcolonial Literature: Preindividual (Hi)stories in Mohammed Dib’s Northern Trilogy” in Postcolonial Literatures and Deleuze: Colonial Pasts, Differential Futures. eds Lorna Burns and Birgit M. Kaiser. New York: Palgrave MacMillan: 123-144, p. 134
- Jonathan Adjemian. 2016. To Hold the World Visible: Writing and History in the Work of Mohammed Dib. (doctoral dissertation York University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada) Retrieved from https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/32246/Adjemian_Jonathan_2016_PhD.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y (last accessed 3 January 2021) p. 8
- ʿAmr al-Khawājā. 2023. “Suʾāl al-Hijrah wa al-ʿAwdah fī Riwāyat al-Nawm fī Ḥaql al-Karz.” www.almothaqaf.com, 8 July 2023, https://www.almothaqaf.com/readings-5/970029-%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%A7-%D8%B3%D8%A4%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%AC%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D9%85-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%B2 (last accessed 5 January 2023)
- Mūsa Ibrāhīm Abū Riyyāsh. 2012. “al-Ightirāb fī Riwāyah ‘Taḥt Samāʾ Kūbinhāghin’.” www.alquds.co.uk, 7 February 2012, https://www.alquds.co.uk/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AA-%D8%B3%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D9%83%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%BA%D9%86-%D9%84/ (last accessed 5 January 2023)