Folktales of Iraq


Book Description

The first English-language collection of Iraqi fairy tales, this enchanting book includes "The Fish That Laughed," "The Blind Sultan," and 46 other adventures, which will captivate readers of all ages.




A Fistful of Pearls and Other Tales from Iraq


Book Description

Secret serpents, devilish demons, mysterious magicians - the folk tales of Iraq teem with otherworldly creatures, magic and earthy humour. Award-winning novelist Elizabeth Laird has gathered together the very best Iraqi stories during her time in the Middle East - stories ranging from thieving porcupines who get their come-uppance to the hilarious tale of the chaos caused by a handsome stranger who knocks at a house inside which lurks a marriageable daughter. Meticulously researched and elegantly retold, the stories reveal the true, traditional heart of Iraq, far removed from today's news headlines.




Sisters in War


Book Description

Caught up in a terrifying war, facing choices of life and death, two Iraqi sisters take us into the hidden world of women’s lives under U.S. occupation. Through their powerful story of love and betrayal, interwoven with the stories of a Palestinian American women’s rights activist and a U.S. soldier, journalist Christina Asquith explores one of the great untold sagas of the Iraq war: the attempt to bring women’s rights to Iraq, and the consequences for all those involved. On the heels of the invasion, twenty-two-year-old Zia accepts a job inside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, trusting that democracy will shield her burgeoning romance with an American contractor from the disapproval of her fellow Iraqis. But as resistance to the U.S. occupation intensifies, Zia and her sister, Nunu, a university student, are targeted by Islamic insurgents and find themselves trapped between their hopes for a new country and the violent reality of a misguided war. Asquith sets their struggle against the broader U.S. efforts to bring women’s rights to Iraq, weaving the sisters’ story with those of Manal, a Palestinian American women’s rights activist, and Heather, a U.S. army reservist, who work together to found Iraq’s first women’s center. After one of their female colleagues is gunned down on a highway, Manal and Heather must decide whether they can keep fighting for Iraqi women if it means risking their own lives. In Sisters in War, Christina Asquith introduces the reader to four women who dare to stand up for their rights in the most desperate circumstances. With compassion and grace, she vividly reveals the plight of women living and serving in Iraq and offers us a vision of how women’s rights and Islam might be reconciled.




Folktales from Iraq


Book Description

A collection of sixteen Arabic stories from the Shia tribes of southern Iraq gathered in the late 1940s.




Iraqi Women


Book Description

The war in Iraq has put the condition of Iraqi women firmly on the global agenda. For years, their lives have been framed by state oppression, economic sanctions and three wars. Now they must play a seminal role in reshaping their country's future for the twenty-first century. Nadje Al-Ali challenges the myths and misconceptions which have dominated debates about Iraqi women, bringing a much needed gender perspective to bear on the central political issue of our time. Based on life stories and oral histories of Iraqi women, she traces the history of Iraq from post-colonial independence, to the emergence of a women's movement in the 1950s, Saddam Hussein's early policy of state feminism to the turn towards greater social conservatism triggered by war and sanctions. Yet, the book also shows that, far from being passive victims, Iraqi women have been, and continue to be, key social and political actors. Following the invasion, Al-Ali analyses the impact of occupation and Islamist movements on women's lives and argues that US-led calls for liberation has led to a greater backlash against Iraqi women.




Arab Folktales


Book Description




Iraq + 100


Book Description

One of NPR's Best Books of 2017! A groundbreaking anthology of science fiction from Iraq that will challenge your perception of what it means to be “The Other” “History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard.”—Operation Daniel In a calm and serene world, one has the luxury of imagining what the future might look like. Now try to imagine that future when your way of life has been devastated by forces beyond your control. Iraq + 100 poses a question to Iraqi writers (those who still live in that nation, and those who have joined the worldwide diaspora): What might your home country look like in the year 2103, a century after a disastrous foreign invasion? Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be “The Other”, this groundbreaking anthology edited by Hassan Blasim contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal, and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, these stories are also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance, and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Iraqi Christ


Book Description

** WINNER OF THE ENGLISH PEN WRITERS IN TRANSLATION AWARD ** **LONG-LISTED FOR THE 2013 FRANK O'CONNOR INTERNATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD** **BOOK OF THE MONTH IN THE SKINNY** A soldier with the ability to predict the future finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror… A deviser of crosswords survives a car-bomb attack, only to discover he is now haunted by one of its victims… Fleeing a robbery, a Baghdad shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits a djinni and the corpse of a soldier from a completely different war… From legends of the desert to horrors of the forest, Blasim’s stories blend the fantastic with the everyday, the surreal with the all-too-real. Taking his cues from Kafka, his prose shines a dazzling light into the dark absurdities of Iraq’s recent past and the torments of its countless refugees. The subject of this, his second collection, is primarily trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it (including, of course, fiction). The result is a masterclass in metaphor – a new kind of story-telling, forged in the crucible of war, and just as shocking. 'At first, you receive Blasim with the kind of shocked applause you’d award a fairly transgressive stand-up. You’re quite elated. Then you stop reading it at bedtime. At his best, Blasim produces a corrosive mixture of broken lyricism, bitter irony and hyper-realism which topples into the fantastic and the quotidian in the same reading moment.' – M John Harrison 'Perhaps the best writer of Arabic fiction alive...' – The Guardian. 'Bolaño-esque in its visceral exuberance, and also Borgesian in its gnomic complexity... a master of metaphor.' – The Guardian.




The Three Princes of Serendip: New Tellings of Old Tales for Everyone


Book Description

This feast of Middle Eastern folklore from an award-winning Iraqi storyteller is paired with vibrant cut-paper art. The twenty fables and folktales in this illustrated storybook have taken a long journey. Many have roots that stretch across Europe, Asia, and Africa, but when award-winning writer and gatherer of tales Rodaan Al Galidi learned them in his homeland of Iraq, it was as Arabic folktales and as part of the Arabic storytelling tradition. When he migrated to the Netherlands, he shaped twenty of those tales into his debut book for children, which was translated to English by Laura Watkinson. Filled with wisdom about love and acceptance, and warnings against folly, these elegantly translated stories—many unknown in the United States—of donkeys and roosters, kings, sheikhs, and paupers are exquisitely illustrated by cut-paper artist Geertje Aalders. Beautifully packaged, The Three Princes of Serendip is a rich and varied introduction to the world of Middle Eastern folklore.




A Fire in My Heart


Book Description

A rich offering of traditional Kurdish tales, many never before offered in English, plus background information on the people, their culture, and history.




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