Avail Yourself Iraq + 100: Stories From A Century After The Invasion Written And Illustrated By Hassan Blasim Displayed As Copy

stories in this collection range from flat at best to nonsensical at worst, They're meant to imagine Iraqyears after theinvasion, and some did that, Some used it as an excuse to write about Iraq today, None were especially compelling or even engaging, and though they were all translated by different people, the translations were almost universally awkward with some obvious errors and poor use of English idioms.
This should have been a lot more effective than it was, I only read one short story from this book for a class, The whole book is a collection of short stories imagining Iraqyears after the American and Britishled invasion.


People were forced away from their homes in thest century, and this story is about Iraqis reconnecting the pieces of their history for the love of Bagdad.


In "Bagdad Syndrome" by Zhraa Alhaboby, Sudra Sen Sumer is an architect creating a new design for Lover's Square, a square that once held a statue commemorating two lovers who were separated for having different religions.
The statue itself was that of Scheherazade and Shahryar he was a king who beheaded his wives so they wouldn't cheat on him.
Scheherazade was a wife of his and stayed alive by telling stories and leaving cliffhangers to continue the next day.
The statue has disappeared from the square a long time ago,   

Sudra who has Bagdad Syndrome dreams of Scheherazade weeping, He receives a piece of the statue as a gift and tries to find the missing pieces to bring it all back together in his square.
sitelinkWatch a minireview in my Augustwrap up!

I received an advanced ebook of this collection from the publisher through NetGalley.




Overall, I found this to be a solid short fiction collection, A few stories were definitely not for me, but others I really, really enjoyed, That wide range landed the collection three from me, My favorite story in the collection was "Bagdad Syndrome"I absolutely LOVED this one,

I found that the language itself often felt a bit stiff and formal, particularly in the first few stories.
This might be because the collection contains translations, It also might be because I am simply not that familiar with Iraqi literature in general, I don't want to group all Iraqi literature together, but I'm sure that being more familiar with the Iraqi literary tradition would have added another layer to the collection.
I noticed that over the course of the collection, that stiffness and formality seemed to fadeI don't know if this is because the language actually DOES shift over the course of the book, or if I simply got used to reading it I think it's most likely the latter.


The general concept of this collectionimagine Iraqyears into the futurecreated a really interesting range of stories.
Some were traditional futuristic scifi, some were more generally speculative, all were incredibly interesting even those I didn't enjoy as much as others.
I love science fiction anthologies amp I'm excited to see one featuring Iraqi authors!

, Kahramana by sitelinkAnoud

, The Gardens of Babylon by sitelinkHassan Blasim
Strange, . .

. The Corporal by sitelinkAli Bader

, The Worker by sitelinkDiaa Jubaili
This one had pieces of history woven into the story, though the "present day" inyears was bleak.
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. The Day by Day Mosque by sitelinkMortada Gzar
What! Why are they collecting people's snot Why do they want to reverse everything So confusing!!

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Baghdad Syndrome by sitelinkZhraa Alhaboby

, Operation Daniel by sitelinkKhalid Kaki

, Kuszib by sitelinkHassan Abdulrazzak
Horrifying !

, The Here and Now Prison by Jalal Hassan
Very abrupt ending,

. Najufa by sitelinkIbrahim AlMarashi



I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
Hassan Blasims editorial call in Iraq, originally suggested to him by his publisher, is a fascinating one“imagine Iraq a hundred years after the US occupation, through short fiction”and it has engendered a mustread anthology.
In his Foreword, Blasim makes a number of interesting observations as he relates the challenge of getting stories for this project.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly,” he says, “it was difficult to persuade many Iraqi writers to write stories set in the future when they were already so busy writing about the cruelty, horror and shock of the present, or trying to delve into the past to reread Iraqs former nightmares and glories.
” The significance of the achievement on hand becomes clear a few paragraphs later: “Iraqi literature suffers from a dire shortage of science fiction writing and I am close to certain that this book of short stories is the first of its kind, in theme and in form, in the corpus of modern Iraqi literature.
” Its certainly my first experience with contemporary Arabic science fiction and fantasy, and Im grateful it exists.
Kudos also to the translators of specific stories,

Blasim provides two possible reasons for the dearth of Arabic science fiction: “inflexible religious discourse” and “pride in the Arab poetic tradition.
” It makes perfect sense, then, that the ten writers featured herein, including Blasim himself, would revolt against religious oppression and the tyranny of the past, and revolt they do, with vigor.
These ten stories demonstrate a range of styles and themes, and severallike Mortada Gzars short but densely surreal “The Day By Day Mosque,” which kicks off with a description of ayearold vinegar produced by “the National Snot Bank”are completely sui generis.
Yet there is a common thread of transgression and an explicit confrontation of Iraqs violent past, Questions of identity, actual truth vs, political spin, the continuity of history, the ravages of disease and extreme poverty, are consistently illuminated through graphic horrors, acerbic parables, or combinations thereof.
If this stuff doesnt make you uncomfortable, youre probably not reading it right,

Hassan Abdulrazzaks “Kuszib” unquestionably hit me the hardest, Its the most obviously sciencefictional, in that it features an alien invasion, but its tone is notably measured.
The story kicks off with a low clerks excitement at the prospect of taking his wife Ona to the elite, invitationonly “Feast,” which offers “a chance to sample the Sectors finest gastronomical delights the opportunity to mix with the cream of society and introductions to the kind of people youd never normally encounter as a mere sorting clerk.
” The story brilliantly reframes the grotesque as the commonplace, testing our limits at the normalization of genocide, and culminates in an utterly devastating final line.
“Kuszib,” one of the most extreme stories Ive read in years, is not for the faint of heart.
Im just glad I dont eat meat,

In Zhraa Alhabobys “Baghdad Syndrome,” another standout, a sick architect planning a special project for a public square of historical significance becomes haunted by strange dreams that lead him to Scheherazade.
Hassan Blasims lushly inventive “The Gardens of Babylon,” also one of my favorites, chronicles the struggles and strange experiences of a “story designer” working on his latest “smart game,” and features such memorable oddities as “psychedelic insects” attached directly to the skull, and the difficulties of external pointofview narration in stories featuring suicide.
Its a psychological tourdeforce, in direct conversation with literary classics, and its world is richly textured, The opening story, Anouds “Kahramana,” chronicles, in a sort of faux journalism, the story of a woman who escapes marriage to a ruthless dictator though first celebrated for her act of bravery and defiance, she soon learns that the tides of political favor push both ways.


Diaa Jubailis “The Worker,” in which a Governors rhetoric adroitly manipulates the people, unflinchingly examines the horrific daytoday tasks necessary during a time of destitution and disease, but crams too many historical references into its closing section to maintain its focus.
Ali Baders “The Corporal,” a transliteration of the story of the People of the Cave, overtly referenced, presents a man displaced through time.
Despite the irony of a future America becoming an extremist state overrun by religious intolerance, and the sting of its closing line, I found it too didactic to fully satisfy.


The three remaining stories all contain memorable images, In Khalid Kakis “Operation Daniel,” political dissidents of a Chinese leader who has taken over Kirkuk are “archived”: that is to say, incinerated and compressed into diamonds that will adorn the leaders clothing.
In Jalal Hassans “The Here and Now Prison,” Samir and his girlfriend Hala sneak into the Old City, at whose center lie mysteriously “massive columns of an enduring building, holding up a huge goldcolored dome,” and ensuing lessons in history.
Ibrahim alMarashis pilgrimage story, “Najufa,” features many wonders, including fingerembedded passports and droids who have earned the right to be called by their official job titles through an AI revolution, but geopolitical extrapolations and insights into complex family dynamics lie at its core.


If you appreciate the discovery of new voices and new perspectivesone of the things that drew me to science fiction in the first placeyou wont want to miss this anthology, though it may repeatedly put you off while youre reading it.
Its a oneofakind excursion into histories, geographies and cultural values little known to Western readers, Many of the stories are brutal and bleak, but reading them is a mindstretching experience, and its hard to ask more from fiction than trying to reshape the very way in which we view reality.


I received an advanced copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


"And to her, it seemed more attractive than anything this artificial world had to offer, this place where everything you touched became obsolete because you touched it, everything you said became a lie because you said it.
"

This collection was largely disappointing, Although this short story collection is advertised as science fiction, most of the stories read more like literary fiction, despite the supposed futuristic setting, and others were undeniably fantasy.
I think this had most to do with the fact that the advanced technology and other hallmarks of science fiction, when they were present, were often used in the stories more as a fancy backdrop than a tool to question and challenge and prod at the edges of reality.
Also, I found many of the stories struggled to find a balance between the portrayal of the future and the inevitable discussion of Iraq's current state.
Many employed the tactic of jumping back and forth between the future and the present/past, and I feel like this really detracted from the whole point of a depiction of the future, considering the already condensed form these stories were being written in.
Aside from that, the writing often failed to capture me and the stories themselves were generally crude.


Not all of the stories in this collection suffered from these problems, though, The best, by far, was "Najufa", the story I felt best found the balance between the present and the future.
It also integrated science fiction most flawlessly into its story in a meaningful way, and was definitely the most memorable.
Others I enjoyed considerably more were "The Day by Day Mosque", "Kuszib", and "The Here and Now Prison".


Overall, this collection was definitely not what I expected, initially drawn by the fact that this was a bunch of ownvoices stories written by Iraqis from around the world.
Though I didn't end up enjoying many of the stories, there were a few that were well worth reading.
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