Friday Finds: Raghad al-Suheil’s ‘Rabbits of Baghdad’

Raghad al-Suheil is an Iraqi writer with three published short-story collections who works as a doctor of microbiology and immunology and a lecturer in the Faculty of Science at the University of Baghdad:

Al-Suheil’s collection Lululululeee was longlisted for the 2018 Almultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story.

Raphael Cohen has translated her “Rabbits of Baghdad,” which opens with epigraph from the most well-known novel of Portuguese Nobelist Jose Saramago: “I don’t think we did go blind, I think we are blind, blind but seeing, blind people who can see, but do not see.”

The story begins when Saeed, drunk, opens a door. “The rabbit hopped inside. The kicking started. Both were yelling.”

“What are you doing here? It’s my place.” With that Saeed was violently booted out of the broken-down electric fridge…

Saeed was not pleased to be kicked out of his house in this work of political surrealism. You can read the whole story at The Short Story Project.