Nazim Mizhir’s ‘Sad Heron’
“In the beginning, we considered his visit nothing more than an illusion or a daydream, until one evening the village dogs suddenly hushed and stared, bewildered, into the darkness.”
Iraq
From Zuhair Al Hiti’s ‘A Nest of Embers’
This is the story of Zafaran, a young man trying to escape the labels slapped on Sabeans, who leaves Baghdad hoping to find freedom in a small village. Yet, as soon as he arrives, he is recognized as the “Sabean,” and his life takes a new turn, such that he not only faces the myths about Sabeans but the village’s inner darkness.
Short Fiction in Translation: Azher Jirjees’s ‘The Reed Horse’
The Arabic original of this short story appears in the 2017 edition of Azher Jirjees’s collection The Sweetmaker.
Two Poems by Haitham K. Al-Zubbaidi
A Helmet of Brass By Haitham K. Al-Zubbaidi Translated by Ali Layth Azeez Nothing in me betrays the clouds’ expectations except that I am so deep in aridity. Nothing in […]
New Short Fiction: ‘Evil in My Bag’
In Aya Chalabee’s “Evil in My Bag,” a girl comes of age while Iraq is under US occupation and has to contend with a changing landscape, a strange soldier, and a gigantic crow.
Remembering Iraqi Novelist Mahmoud Saeed
FEBRUARY 4, 2025 — Prolific Iraqi novelist Mahmoud Saeed, who moved to Chicago in 1999 but continued to write about Iraq throughout his life, often boldly, died last week after […]
New Short Fiction: Azher Jerjis’s ‘The Crow’s Revelation’
This spring, Banipal Books brought out Iraqi novelist Azher Jirjees’s At Home in the Cherry Orchard. Here, emerging translator Bianca Rosen brings us one of Jirjees’s satiric short stories from […]
Shakir Mustafa on the Obstacles to Translating Iraqi Literature into English
Shakir Mustafa was a scholar focused on Irish literature and drama in 2003 and 2004 when the invasion and occupation of Iraq “swatted away my other interests in English, American, […]
Recommendations: On the New Wave of Memoirs from Iraq
Editor’s note: Publishers who are interested in Iraqi literatures will find more in our May Publishers Newsletter, out on May 15. By Hend Saeed In recent decades, memoir has burgeoned […]