Description

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First (authorized) publication (in any language) of a
wildly popular, anonymously written serial novel that started life as a blog
during the US invasion of Iraq

Populated by a
cast of imagined con artists, holy fools, drag queens, and partisans--as well as
some very factual politicians, priests, and generals--this novel started life as
a pseudonymous blog written "live" by "Shalash" during and after the Second
Iraq War. Never written to be published, all but lost save for disintegrating
printouts treasured by its devotees, Shalash
the Iraqi is here presented in its first authorized translation, with the
blessing and commentary of "Shalash" himself.

The second U.S. invasion of Iraq began in the spring of 2003. By the
autumn of 2005, though the Saddam Hussein regime had reached its bloody end,
ordinary Iraqis were seeing little improvement in their daily lives. Their
country was "free," but to many it seemed free mainly to become a mire of
sectarian violence, corruption, confusion, and fear. In the midst of this
turmoil, a hero arose--or, rather, a jester. In a country where electricity was
only intermittently available, a series of blog posts began to appear at a
soon-to-be-defunct website and took Baghdad by storm. Individual entries were
printed out and passed around for months, until the pages were nearly shredded.
Where neither computers nor printers were available, the posts were retold
aloud, then passed along at second- and third-hand. What could inspire such
devotion? Signed "Shalash the Iraqi," the posts proved to be nothing less than
portions of a madcap serial novel thumbing its nose at Iraq's new normal.

From drunken
monologues to prayers, from poetry to dirty jokes, from fairy tales and folk
stories to pratfall humor, this novel delights readers and sheds light on Iraq
in equal measure.

About the Author

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Luke Leafgren is an Assistant Dean of Harvard College. He has published five translations of Arabic novels and received the 2018 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his English edition of Muhsin Al-Ramli's The President's Gardens.