Mosul, Iraq, in the 1940s is a teeming, multiethnic city where Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Jews, Aramaeans, Turkmens, Yazidis, and Syriacs mingle in the ancient souks and alleyways. In these crowded streets, among rich and poor, educated and illiterate, pious and unbelieving, a boy is growing up. Burdened with chores from an early age, and afflicted with an older brother who persecutes him with mindless sadism, the child finds happiness only in stolen moments with his beloved older sister and with friends in the streets. Closest to his heart are three girls, encountered by chance: a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew. After enriching the boy’s life immensely, all three meet tragic fates, leaving a wound in his heart that will not heal. A richly textured portrayal of Iraqi society before the upheavals of the late twentieth century, Saeed’s novel depicts a sensitive and loving child assailed by the cruelty of life. Sometimes defeated but never surrendering, he is sustained by his city and its people. This novel was the 2010 winner of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies Translation of Arabic Literature Award.
The World through the Eyes of Angels
An Iraqi Novel
Mosul, Iraq, in the 1940s is a teeming, multiethnic city where Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Jews, Aramaeans, Turkmens, Yazidis, and Syriacs mingle in the
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Mahmoud Saeed is an award-winning Iraqi novelist who has written more than twenty novels and short story collections. He was imprisoned several times under the Baathist regime, and a number of his novels were banned. He left Iraq in 1985. Samuel Salter is a writer and translator who has published novels under the pen names Sam Reaves and Dominic Martell. Rafah Abuinnab teaches Arabic at DePaul University in Chicago. Zahra Jishi resides in Ohio. She has translated works by Mahmoud Saeed and Lotfi Hadad.
