The furniture too corresponds with the wood,
the way distant sons write to their mothers
Only the tree whose child they’ve carved into a coffin,
does not receive any mail.
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Iraq
Iraq + 100 Writers Anoud and Diyaa al-Jubeili, Writing ‘About the Fires Burning You Up from Within’
“I strongly doubt that there is an “internal” literature or an “external” literature. If there are writers here working from the heart of the swamps, that doesn’t mean writers abroad are working from within an ivory tower, even if each certainly brings different experiences to their work.”
Sinan Antoon’s IPAF-longlisted ‘Index’ and the Emotional Lives of Objects
In the end, the author gives us two possible endings. Do we choose to save Wadoud and send him outside Iraq to have a new life and a new chance outside Iraq, where he will publish his index? Or will Namir publish the index after Wadoud’s life ends?
Poet Dunya Mikhail on Kidnapped Iraqi Writer Afrah Shawqi and Elusive ‘Freedom of Expression’
In this essay, Afrah said that “freedom of expression” was the phrase most frequently used by Iraqi politicians post-2003, “yet our lives, we journalists, are risked every time we criticize any head, even if it were the head of onion.”
‘Iraq + 100’: Ten Visions of Iraq in 2103
Iraq is often portrayed as a place that has always been violent and always will be. By germinating new narrative possibilities, Iraq + 100 provides new ways of imagining the next century that go beyond seeing the present as eternal.
Friday Finds: Hassan Blasim on Open Borders, Activist Theatre
“My role? For years I would receive emails, hate mail from the Arab world. Now I get hate mail from Finns! Because I speak about racism, about refugees.”
PEN Translates Award to Muhsin Al-Ramli’s ‘The President’s Gardens,’ Translated by Luke Leafgren
Ten titles were selected for the Autumn 2016 round of PEN Translates awards.
‘More Story Writers in Basra Than Even in Baghdad’
“Basra is a pioneer in writing fiction and this is probably because Basra is a multi-ethnic and -nationality city, or used to be, until it was depopulated of these many ethnic and national citizens with the passage of time, such as the Jews, Armenians, Christians and some other foreign residents.”
‘Al-Mutanabbi Street’ 2017: As Long As We Need To Remember
Next March marks the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad’s Al-Mutanabbi Street, the city’s historic bookselling corridor. Many continue to remember.
Sinan Antoon in Stockholm: Translation and Literature of/on Iraq
“What then could come out of bringing these different Iraqi and American experiences of the war, these different time-frames, into dialogue? And what would be lost?”
‘Iraq + 100’ Contributor Anoud on Writing Anger, Violence, and Comedy
“I found that very strange and hard to digest – and I mean that as a compliment.”
Launch Events and More for Long-awaited ‘Iraq + 100’
The PEN-supported collection features writing by the pseudonymous Anoud, as well as Hassan Abdulrazzak, Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Zhraa Alhaboby, Ali Bader, Hassan Blasim, Mortada Gzar, Jalal Hasan, Diaa Jubaili and Khalid Kaki.
