The Iraqi Novel: Recording the Destruction of Iraq in Times of Dictatorship, Wars, Occupation, and Sectarian Rule

Abstract

The Iraqi experience differs to other Arab experiences in the region because of the nature of its political and social developments since the creation of the Iraqi state in 1921: bloody political conflict, armed opposition movements in the Iraqi mountains from the 1940s, military coups that led to a tyrannical dictatorship that in turn led to bloody wars, a long economic embargo, then occupation. All these circumstances have, over the last quarter century, produced a sharp divide between two forms of narrative. The first is written in the shadow of dictatorship and is characterized by texts that have resorted to symbolism, myth, and the ancient history of Iraq to construct a novel that added new artistic forms to Arabic prose but avoided delving into Iraq’s contemporary troubles.