Download or read book The Iraqi Nights written by Dunya Mikhail and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning new collection by one of Iraq’s brightest poetic voices The Iraqi Nights is the third collection by the acclaimed Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail. Taking The One Thousand and One Nights as her central theme, Mikhail personifies the role of Scheherazade the storyteller, saving herself through her tales. The nights are endless, seemingly as dark as war in this haunting collection, seemingly as endless as war. Yet the poet cannot stop dreaming of a future beyond the violence of a place where “every moment / something ordinary / will happen under the sun.” Unlike Scheherazade, however, Mikhail is writing, not to escape death, but to summon the strength to endure. Inhabiting the emotive spaces between Iraq and the U.S., Mikhail infuses those harsh realms with a deep poetic intimacy. The author’s vivid illustrations — inspired by Sumerian tablets — are threaded throughout this powerful book.
Download or read book The Iraqi Nights written by Dunya Mikhail and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning new collection by one of Iraq's brightest poetic voices
Download or read book 1001 Nights in Iraq written by Shant Kenderian and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shant Kenderian's visit to Baghdad in 1980, at age seventeen, was supposed to be a short one -- just enough time to make peace with his estranged father before returning to his home in the United States. But then Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and sealed off Iraq's borders to every man of military age -- including Shant. Suddenly forced onto the front lines, his two-week visit turned into a nightmare that lasted for ten years. 1001 Nights in Iraq presents a human story that provides unique insight into a country and culture that we only get a hint of in the headlines. After surviving the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War, Shant was then forced to fight on the front lines of Desert Storm without being given the proper equipment, including a gun, but miraculously survived to be captured by the Americans and become a POW. He underwent starvation, heavy interrogations, and solitary confinement, but what broke him in the end was his love affair with a female American soldier. Yet throughout this whole ordeal, Shant never lost his respect for people, his faith in God, or his sense of humor.
Download or read book The Beekeeper Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq written by Dunya Mikhail and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of a beekeeper who risks his life to rescue enslaved women from Daesh Since 2014, Daesh (ISIS) has been brutalizing the Yazidi people of northern Iraq: sowing destruction, killing those who won’t convert to Islam, and enslaving young girls and women. The Beekeeper, by the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail, tells the harrowing stories of several women who managed to escape the clutches of Daesh. Mikhail extensively interviews these women—who’ve lost their families and loved ones, who’ve been sexually abused, psychologically tortured, and forced to manufacture chemical weapons—and as their tales unfold, an unlikely hero emerges: a beekeeper, who uses his knowledge of the local terrain, along with a wide network of transporters, helpers, and former cigarette smugglers, to bring these women, one by one, through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, back into safety. In the face of inhuman suffering, this powerful work of nonfiction offers a counterpoint to Daesh’s genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk their own lives to save those of others.
Download or read book In Her Feminine Sign written by Dunya Mikhail and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant poetic exploration of language and gender, place, and time, seen through the mirror of exile In Her Feminine Sign follows on the heels of Dunya Mikhail's devastating account of Daesh kidnappings and killings of Yazidi women in Iraq, The Beekeeper. It is the first book she has written in both Arabic and English, a process she talks about in her preface, saying "The poet is at home in both texts, yet she remains a stranger." With a subtle simplicity and disquieting humor reminiscent of Wislawa Szymborska and an unadorned lyricism wholly her own, Mikhail shifts between her childhood in Baghdad and her present life in Detroit, between Ground Zero and a mass grave, between a game of chess and a flamingo. At the heart of the book is the symbol of the tied circle, the Arabic suffix taa-marbuta—a circle with two dots above it that determines a feminine word, or sign. This tied circle transforms into the moon, a stone that binds friendship, birdsong over ruins, three kidnapped women, and a hymn to Nisaba, the goddess of writing. A section of "Iraqi haiku" unfolds like Sumerian symbols carved onto clay tablets, transmuted into the stuff of our ordinary, daily life. In another poem, Mikhail defines the Sumerian word for freedom, Ama-ar-gi, as "what seeps out / from the dead into our dreams."
Download or read book Nights in the Pink Motel written by Robert Earle and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nights in the Pink Motel is the first historical account of the strategic process that sought to reverse the negative consequences of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. It offers details and insights into the Iraqi insurgency and Coalition counterinsurgency available nowhere else. This book is a sustained, comprehensive account of all the conflicting factors that have made Iraq such an intractable international crisis and offers an intriguing narrative of how the American-led Coalition returned sovereignty to Iraq in June 2004, while defending Iraq’s fledgling interim government against a rising insurgency and terrorism and helping ensure the success of Iraq’s first national election in January 2005. The author, Robert Earle—recruited by the first U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, to serve as Negroponte’s strategist—documents the Coalition’s uncertainty about the nature of the insurgent/terrorist enemies, whose aim is to defeat democratization in Iraq. Earle’s story explores the impediments frustrating the massive, $18 billion U.S. reconstruction effort and recounts the formulation of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy issued by Negroponte and Multinational Force-Iraq Commanding General George Casey. The title of the book is derived from the name given to the author's dingy offices a former palace of Saddam Hussein in the Green Zone of Badgad where he wrestled with developing a startegy for peace. Upon drafting the strategy, Earle learns he must be evacuated from Iraq because of massive deep vein thrombosis in his left thigh.This narrative twist takes him from the company of senior diplomats, generals, and Iraqi politicians and places him in the medical pipeline of wounded soldiers. Upon arriving home, Earle thinks his nightmare assignment in Iraq is over, but Negroponte requests that he return to Baghdad to write a long message to the President, explaining that U.S. policy is failing and offering an alternative approach. Casey, meanwhile, also wants Earle to assess the evolution of Iraqi politics and possible outcomes of the risky January 2005 election.Returning to Iraq over the strenuous objections of State Department doctors, Earle occupies the dingy environs he calls the “Pink Motel” and completes his assignments, digging deeper into the realities of the international effort to end the violence and build the peace. Nights in the Pink Motel is a graphic, first-person account of the political, military, and human efforts to dispel the fog of 21st century warfare.The book is an essential contribution to understanding how all elements of national power must be combined to defeat insurgency and terror.
Download or read book Fifteen Iraqi Poets written by Dunyā Mīkhāʼīl and published by New Directions Poetry Pamphlet. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of dazzling new, contemporary from Iraq, edited by award-winning Iraqi-American poet Dunya Mikhail
Download or read book The War Works Hard written by Dunyā Mīkhāʼīl and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poems by an exiled Iraqi poet, many about war.
Download or read book Baghdad Diaries written by Nuha al-Radi and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this often moving, sometimes wry account of life in Baghdad during the first war on Iraq and in exile in the years following, Iraqi-born, British-educated artist Nuha al-Radi shows us the effects of war on ordinary people. She recounts the day-to-day realities of living in a city under siege, where food has to be consumed or thrown out because there is no way to preserve it, where eventually people cannot sleep until the nightly bombing commences, where packs of stray dogs roam the streets (and provide her own dog Salvi with a harem) and rats invade homes. Through it all, al-Radi works at her art and gathers with neighbors and family for meals and other occasions, happy and sad. In the wake of the war, al-Radi lives in semi-exile, shuttling between Beirut and Amman, travelling to New York, London, Mexico and Yemen. As she suffers the indignities of being an Iraqi in exile, al-Radi immerses us in a way of life constricted by the stress and effects of war and embargoes, giving texture to a reality we have only been able to imagine before now. But what emanates most vibrantly from these diaries is the spirit of endurance and the celebration of the smallest of life’s joys.
Download or read book One Hundred and One Nights written by Benjamin Buchholz and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants: freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsical fourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of American pop culture. Enchanted by Layla's stories and her company, Abu Saheeh settles into the city's rhythm and begins rebuilding his life. But two sudden developments -- his alliance with a powerful merchant and his employment of a hot-headed young assistant -- reawaken painful memories, and not even Layla may be able to save Abu Saheeh from careening out of control and endangering all around them. A breathtaking tale of friendship, love, and betrayal, One Hundred and One Nights is an unforgettable novel about the struggle for salvation and the power of family.
Download or read book Nights of Awe written by Harri Nykänen and published by Bitter Lemon Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eccentric Jewish policeman Ariel Kafka investigates four Arabs' murders in this fresh take on the Nordic crime novel.
Download or read book Escape in Iraq written by Thomas Hamill and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Revolt Against the Sun written by Nazik al-Malaʾika and published by Saqi Books. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika was one of the most important Arab poets of the twentieth century. Over the course of a four-decade career, her contributions to both the theory and the practice of free verse (or tafʿilah) poetry confirmed her position as a pioneer of Arab modernism. Revolt Against the Sun presents a selection of Nazik al-Malaika's poetry in English for the first time. Bringing together poems from each of her published collections, it traces al-Mala'ika's transformation from a lyrical Romantic poet in the 1940s to a fervently committed Arab nationalist in the 1970s and 1980s. The translations offer both an overview of her life and work, and an insight into the political and social realities in the Arab world in the decades following the Second World War. Featuring a comprehensive historical and critical introduction, this bilingual reader reveals how one woman transformed the landscape of modern Arabic literature and culture in the twentieth century. It is a key resource for students and teachers of Arabic and world literature, as well as for readers interested in discovering an alternative narrative of modern Iraqi culture.
Download or read book One Thousand and One Nights written by Hanan Al-Shaykh and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab world's greatest folk stories re-imagined by the acclaimed Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh, published to coincide with the world tour of a magnificent musical and theatrical production directed by Tim Supple
Download or read book Baghdad at Night written by Dallas Pearce and published by Synergy Books Publishing. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baghdad at Night is a first-person narrative seen through the eyes of an airborne infantry scout during '7th Surge' of 2007 in central Baghdad. This work encompasses all facets of life in the modern Middle Eastern warzone while giving the reader an intimate view of the soldier's life... from the bathroom to the battlefield. Baghdad at Night focuses on squad dynamics, interpersonal relationships, and the true nature of combat and fear as they are experienced behind the butt-stock of a rifle.
Download or read book Sisters in War written by Christina Asquith and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-05-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Corpse Exhibition written by Hassan Blasim and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A blistering debut that does for the Iraqi perspective on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan what Phil Klay’s Redeployment does for the American perspective “[A] wonderful collection.” —George Saunders, The New York Times Book Review The first major literary work about the Iraq War from an Iraqi perspective—by an explosive new voice hailed as “perhaps the best writer of Arabic fiction alive” (The Guardian)—The Corpse Exhibition shows us the war as we have never seen it before. Here is a world not only of soldiers and assassins, hostages and car bombers, refugees and terrorists, but also of madmen and prophets, angels and djinni, sorcerers and spirits. Blending shocking realism with flights of fantasy, The Corpse Exhibition offers us a pageant of horrors, as haunting as the photos of Abu Ghraib and as difficult to look away from, but shot through with a gallows humor that yields an unflinching comedy of the macabre. Gripping and hallucinatory, this is a new kind of storytelling forged in the crucible of war.
