The Beautiful Country

Description

The narrative in this captivating novel flows poetically, presenting the perspectives of two internal authors who alternately wrote the three parts of the story: Hilmi and his friend Eidan. Reality and imagination intertwine in the dense and richly detailed narrative, complemented by a third, implicit narrator: the old woman Qisma, whose mythical storytelling flows seamlessly into the overall narrative.

The story of the beloved “Noud,” whose reality blends with the delusions of a lover’s mind, appears as a frame story enveloping a deeper one: the Iraq of the 1990s, an Iraq of hopelessness, nihilism, and accumulated disappointments.

It is a complex love story, where the specters of the beloved become more real than others: Nadia, Nada, and the fates of other women. At its core, it is also a novel—perhaps the first—about Baghdad’s largest working-class neighborhood, Sadr City (formerly known as Thawra City), exploring its roots and the struggles of its inhabitants with their destinies.

“The Beautiful Country,” the debut novel by Iraqi writer Ahmed Saadawi, draws its subject matter from the very heart of his reality, a reality burdened by the wounds inflicted on Iraqi society by war. Human dreams are the most prominent victims of war, which transforms dreams into inescapable nightmares.