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Iraq, Ten Years Later

April 2013

Iraqi Army (IA) 1st Brigade Soldiers attend perimeter security training at Camp Cooke
Iraqi Army (IA) 1st Brigade Soldiers attend perimeter security training at Camp Cooke, Al Taji Military Base, Baghdad Province, Iraq (IRQ), during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. The US National Archives

As part of our tenth-anniversary year, we are returning to the “Axis of Evil,” Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, the subjects of our first three issues. We begin with Iraq, which has just passed its own ten-year milestone, one of bloody conflict and deadly political strife rather than fiction and poetry. From the Green Zone to a tiny mountain village, in battlefield chaos and domestic upheaval, Luay Hamza Abbas, Abd al-Khaliq al-Rikabi, Muhsin al-Ramli, Sinan Antoon, Ali Bader, Hassan Blasim, Sargon Boulus, Duna Ghali, Mahmoud Saeed, Salima Saleh, and Najem Wali record not only the decade of war but its effects on the home front. This issue is funded in part by a private foundation.

 

Beyond the Trauma of War: Iraqi Literature Today
By Yasmeen Hanoosh
The prolonged experience of war still dominates Iraqi articulations of self and place.
Salman and the Mule Suicides
By Najem Wali
Mules in this country had become conscientious objectors.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
A Portal in Space
By Mahmoud Saeed
They were almost at Anwar’s house when the third bomb fell.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
Multilingual
The Arab Altar
By Abd al-Khaliq al-Rikabi
She exploded, “So why isn’t she pregnant yet?”
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
The Mulberry Tree
By Salima Saleh
Muhammad had returned from the dead, resurrected from the bones that had sunk in the well.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
The Green Zone Rabbit
By Hassan Blasim
Wasn’t it your bloody rabbit that laid the egg?
Translated from Arabic by Jonathan Wright
Be Quiet, Soldiers
By Ali Bader
There’s no glory or holy symbolism in dying during warfare.
Translated from Arabic by Amir Moosavi
Multilingual
Your Body Journeyed Off
By Duna Ghali
Your body becomes my carry-on bag.
Translated from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins
The One-Eyed TV
By Muhsin al-Ramli
This is how our village acquired its own Rambo and Tarzan.
Translated from Arabic by Yasmeen Hanoosh
Multilingual
Merrymaking
By Luay Hamza Abbas
He lies silently and calmly in the hole, waiting for it to be filled in.
Translated from Arabic by Yasmeen Hanoosh
Multilingual
A Butterfly in New York
By Sinan Antoon
Its wings two leaves / falling from heaven
Translated from Arabic by the author
Music in a Baghdad Alley
By Sargon Boulus
If you wish to sleep with me / In her dirt-filled arms
Translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
In Saadi Shirazi’s Garden (When He Was a Prisoner)
By Sargon Boulus
With my lips I can read / better than a blind man
Translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
The Last Six Days of Baghdad
By Mustapha Benfodil
They know that if they enter the city, we’ll eat them alive.
Translated from French by Lulu Norman
A Vacation in Basra
By Mariusz Zawadzki
I have forged papers saying I am an aid worker.
Translated from Polish by Sean Gasper Bye