Iraq + 100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq - Softcover

Blasim, Hassan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250161320 ISBN 13: 9781250161321

Verlag: Tor Trade, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

One of NPR's Best Books of 2017!

A groundbreaking anthology of science fiction from Iraq that will challenge your perception of what it means to be "The Other"

"History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard."-Operation Daniel

In a calm and serene world, one has the luxury of imagining what the future might look like.

Now try to imagine that future when your way of life has been devastated by forces beyond your control.

Iraq + 100 poses a question to Iraqi writers (those who still live in that nation, and those who have joined the worldwide diaspora): What might your home country look like in the year 2103, a century after a disastrous foreign invasion?

Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be "The Other", this groundbreaking anthology edited by Hassan Blasim contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal, and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, these stories are also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance, and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Described by The Guardian as "perhaps the greatest writer of Arabic fiction alive," Hassan Blasim is an Iraq-born film director and writer. A multiple PEN Award winner, he is the author of The Corpse Exhibition, which won a number of awards, and The Iraqi Christ, which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2014, making Blasim the first Arabic writer to win that award. He lives in Finland.

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IRAQ + 100

The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq

By Hassan Blasim

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2016 remains with the authors and translators
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-16132-1

Contents

TITLE PAGE, 
COPYRIGHT NOTICE, 
INTRODUCTION Hassan Blasim • Translated by Jonathan Wright, 
KAHRAMANA Anoud, 
THE GARDENS OF BABYLON Hassan Blasim • Translated by Jonathan Wright, 
THE CORPORAL Ali Bader • Translated by Elisabeth Jaquette, 
THE WORKER Diaa Jubaili • Translated by Andrew Leber, 
THE DAY BY DAY MOSQUE Mortada Gzar • Translated by Katharine Halls, 
BAGHDAD SYNDROME Zhraa Alhaboby • Translated by Emre Bennett, 
OPERATION DANIEL Khalid Kaki • Translated by Adam Talib, 
KUSZIB Hassan Abdulrazzak, 
THE HERE AND NOW PRISON Jalal Hasan • Translated by Max Weiss, 
NAJUFA Ibrahim al-Marashi, 
AFTERWORD Ra Page, 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS, 
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS, 
SPECIAL THANKS, 
ABOUT THE EDITOR, 
COPYRIGHT, 

CHAPTER 1

KAHRAMANA ANOUD

The day Kahramana was to be wed to Mullah Hashish, she stabbed him in the right eye and ran to the American Annex of Sulaymania.

The local media of the Islamic Empire of Wadi Hashish had not yet caught up on the matter. While the rest of the world was using holographics (because maintaining fiber optic cables across Water War zones had proved impossible), Wadi Hashish considered anything but paper newspapers printed on metal presses to be western blasphemy. Plus the people of Wadi Hashish were never in a hurry.

* * *

By the time Kahramana had snuck out of the last Wadi Hashish checkpoint, Akhbar Al Imara (News of the Empire) had just ran this on their front page:

Oh what a joyous day of jubilation. Allahu Akbar! The Islamic State of Wadi Hashish today wears its festive green and black ribbons on every streetlamp. Civil servants have been ordered by the great, the brave lion, the sword of Allah, Amir Mullah Hashish — May Allah reward him in abundance — to cook giant pots of lamb stew at every intersection to feed the poor, as a gesture of his generosity, on the day he is to wed the most beautiful woman in the Empire (according to our sisters, as the virtuous Amir — May Allah reward him in abundance — has never laid eyes on a woman before), no other than our blue-eyed sister, Kahramana. The grand wedding reception for men will be held in the courtyard outside Wadi Hashish Municipality tomorrow at sunset. Attendance is mandatory.

'Eat shit!' said Lieutenant Abdulhadi as he tossed the newspaper aside and rubbed its ink off his fingers. NATO in Baghdadistan were the biggest consumers of Akhbar Al Imara. They had no idea what happened up north, he thought. Baghdadistan analysts just gobbled up every word those metal printers spat out. It was the only way they could know what Mullah Hashish was up to since he never went digital. The Lieutenant had been sent to the Islamic Empire border under NATO orders. He missed the sandy, sunny, humid climate of Port Basra and hated the bone-dry freezing wind up in this place. Ever since NATO had hit the Empire with its sterility gas, it had snowed all year across the northwest side of Iraq, all the way to the Mediterranean. The sterility germs hadn't worked, because the Hashishans were still breeding like cockroaches, only now in six feet of snow.

At the end of his shift, the Lieutenant climbed into his trailer, dropped onto his bed, kicked off his knee-length boots and sat there, rotating the stiffness out of his ankles. He was staring through the window and letting out deep puffs from a cigarette he'd confiscated, when gradually he realised he was looking at a woman tangled up in the barbed wire.

'What now, goddamn it!'

He climbed into his boots again, grabbed his machine gun and coat, and walked out toward her.

'Go back, get back,' Abdulhadi waved at the woman. 'No Nations Union League trailers here. Go away!' But she stayed put until he was an arm-stretch away — then she revealed her face. Her skin was like marble and she had plump red lips and the nose of a television star. Her face was lightly dotted with pink freckles. Her most prominent features, however, were her dark-blue eyes. They sent a shiver through Abdulhadi colder than the frostbite in his ink-stained fingers. A strand of her bluish-black hair snuck out of her headscarf and twirled in the breeze. Kahramana was the most beautiful woman Lieutenant Abdulhadi had ever seen. He had also never seen blue eyes before. 'I beg you, brother,' she interrupted his stare, 'they will kill me.' Her eyes were welling up now. Mesmerized by her, Abdulhadi clicked back the safety on his firearm, turned his back to her and gestured with his hand for her to go.

* * *

Kahramana walked for another day and a half until she saw the blue flag of the NUL. There, she was strip-searched, de-liced, and sub-categorized by posture, teeth, size, skin colour, and finally by age before queuing up for fingerprinting, DNA registering, and to have her head shaved. She wept for her long hair. In all her sixteen years, this was her very first haircut.

But the bald head only made Kahramana's eyes stand out more. They were so prominent that all the women in the female quarters avoided her and started to spin stories about how she would use witchcraft to win over the soldiers and NUL officials.

They were right. How else could you explain why Kahramana started to be picked again and again by the NUL, to represent migrants at the strategic emergency workshops? Her face was featured in all NUL emergency appeal broadcasts since she arrived at the camp.

But the women especially despised Kahramana because her pleading eyes appeared on a giant NUL billboard at the entrance of the camp. Her deep-blue irises were the size of truck tires, staring down at everyone who entered the camp.

The Americans, however, were accustomed to all shades of blue eyes, and Kahramana didn't move them. Her rape-asylum case took three years of multiple rejections and appeals before any ruling was made.

During this time, Kahramana was examined by two of the three medical and psychological committees: the first chaired by the New York-based Acts For Humanity to determine if Kahramana displayed the appropriate psychological symptoms of a rape victim (they let everyone pass!); the second committee consisted of migrant doctors from the camp, operating under guidance of NUL doctors in NYC, to do a virginity test. The third and final stage would have been a face-to-face interview at the Annex, an hour's drive from the camp, to determine whether the sex was consensual or indeed forced, upon which the woman would be granted rape-asylum status. But since Kahramana had gouged Mullah Hashish's eyeball out before he'd had a chance to consummate the matrimony, the second committee decided that Kahramana was a virgin, thus could not possibly have been raped. Her case never made it to the third committee, and even then it would still have been for the U.S. Annex of Sulaymania to make the final decision.

But Kahramana's face had not gone unnoticed. Lobby groups started to march in support of her outside the Annex perimeter, banging pots and burning flags. For months, they would gather to throw kalashes at the perimeter fence, yelling 'Rape comes in all forms!', until eventually the NUL intervened and allowed Kahramana to have a face-to-face interview with a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Trade
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250161320
• ISBN 13: 9781250161321
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 223
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland