- Hadiyya Ḥussayn (1956-, Iraq) – Mā Baʿd al-Ḥubb (2003, English trans. Beyond Love, 2012). This novel focusses on the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait and the massacre they fell victim to on ‘highway 80’ heading home. One of the characters in the novel is ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Amīr, the Iraqi poet who recorded the return in his “Diary of a Soldier Returning from the Defeat”. The novel depicts horrifying scenes in which Iraqi soldiers are burnt and mummified in their vehicles, while those who do survive and arrive in Basra fall victim to the humiliation and frustration (reference).
- ʿAbd al-Karīm al-ʿUbaydī (?, Iraq) – Ḍayāʿ fī Ḥafral-Bāṭin (‘Loss in Ḥafr al-Bāṭin’, 2009). Through the eyes of a young soldier stationed in the isolated and forgotten desert front of Ḥafr al-Bāṭin, this novel depicts the ‘ground story’ of the Gulf War. The narrator is captured, held hostage, and forced to the front where he is subjected to propaganda and empty statements as to why the war is necessary. Although food and equipment are scarce at the cold desert front, corruption and desertion is not, which the novel all describes using irony, sarcasm, crude language, and obscene imagery. The anti-war hero narrator debunks both the Iraqi regime’s false rhetoric and American’s idealistic messaging (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Ikram Masmoudi. 2015. War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction. . Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, p. 85, 123, 124