From legends of the desert to horrors of the forest, Blasim's stories blend the fantastic with the everyday, the surreal with the all-too-real. Taking his cues from Kafka, his prose shines a dazzling light into the dark absurdities of Iraq s recent past and the torments of its countless refugees. The subject of this, his second collection, is primarily trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it (including, of course, fiction). The result is a masterclass in metaphor a new kind of story-telling, forged in the crucible of war, and just as shocking.
The Iraqi Christ
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
'Perhaps the best writer of Arabic fiction alive...' --The Guardian
'Blasim's tone is a resilient blend of mordancy and broken lyricism.' --Intelligent Life
'Required reading for a real taste of life in Iraq.' --The National
'Blasim's tone is a resilient blend of mordancy and broken lyricism.' --Intelligent Life
'Required reading for a real taste of life in Iraq.' --The National
About the Author
Hassan Blasim is a poet, filmmaker and short story writer. Born in Baghdad in 1973, he studied at the city's Academy of Cinematic Arts, where two of his films Gardenia (screenplay & director) and White Clay (screenplay) won the Academy's Festival Award for Best Work in their respective years. In 1998 he left Baghdad for Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan), where he continued to make films, including the feature-length drama Wounded Camera, under the pseudonym Ouazad Osman, fearing for his family back in Baghdad under the Hussein dictatorship. In 2004, he moved to Finland, where he has since made numerous short films and documentaries for Finnish television. His stories have previously been published on www.iraqstory.com and his essays on cinema have featured in Cinema Booklets (Emirates Cultural Foundation). His first short story in English appeared in Madinah, City Stories from the Middle East (Comma 2008). His first collection The Madman of Freedom Square (Comma, 2009) has been translated into five languages. This is his second book.
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Paul Bowes
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
'The Iraqi Christ' is the second collection of Hassan Blasim's stories to be published in English. As with its predecessor, 'The Madman of Freedom Square', most of the fourteen stories here originally appeared in Arabic on the web. The translator once again is Jonathan Wright.
Blasim has been widely recognised as a powerful and original voice in Arabic fiction, and this book is only likely to enhance his reputation. Blasim's style is best characterised as 'Arabic gothic' - although that is to ignore the fact that since writing from the East was itself a huge influence on the 'oriental tales' of European writers from the eighteenth century on, the priority is really in Blasim's favour: he is reappropriating a native tradition. The cover carries a rare admiring acknowledgement from M. John Harrison. This isn't out of place, since both writers share the habit of making the fantastic emerge out of the banal. Comparisons have also been made with Kafka, and Blasim has acknowledged the influence: but he is far from being a mere imitator.
One difference lies in the already extraordinary nature of the Iraqi reality that Blasim transforms here; another is his fearlessness in responding to that reality by juxtaposing what are normally thought of as different modes of writing. Some of these stories veer vertiginously - in the space of ten pages - between straight reportage, supernatural fantasy and paranoid speculation with near-total abandon: this gives them a surrealist edge.
The background - Iraq and its neighbours during the last thirty years - is already one in which murder, torture, betrayal, loss of family and exile are commonplace. The astonishing violence and inhumanity that characterise ordinary life in these stories make the passage from the everyday to the extraordinary seem logical, almost inevitable.
Nonetheless, Blasim extracts meaning and on occasion even hope from this material without falling into absurdity or the macho sentimentality of blood and violence. It's a high-wire act that constantly risks failure but succeeds brilliantly. Highly recommended to anyone interested in contemporary fiction.
140 pages, not 176 as stated.
Blasim has been widely recognised as a powerful and original voice in Arabic fiction, and this book is only likely to enhance his reputation. Blasim's style is best characterised as 'Arabic gothic' - although that is to ignore the fact that since writing from the East was itself a huge influence on the 'oriental tales' of European writers from the eighteenth century on, the priority is really in Blasim's favour: he is reappropriating a native tradition. The cover carries a rare admiring acknowledgement from M. John Harrison. This isn't out of place, since both writers share the habit of making the fantastic emerge out of the banal. Comparisons have also been made with Kafka, and Blasim has acknowledged the influence: but he is far from being a mere imitator.
One difference lies in the already extraordinary nature of the Iraqi reality that Blasim transforms here; another is his fearlessness in responding to that reality by juxtaposing what are normally thought of as different modes of writing. Some of these stories veer vertiginously - in the space of ten pages - between straight reportage, supernatural fantasy and paranoid speculation with near-total abandon: this gives them a surrealist edge.
The background - Iraq and its neighbours during the last thirty years - is already one in which murder, torture, betrayal, loss of family and exile are commonplace. The astonishing violence and inhumanity that characterise ordinary life in these stories make the passage from the everyday to the extraordinary seem logical, almost inevitable.
Nonetheless, Blasim extracts meaning and on occasion even hope from this material without falling into absurdity or the macho sentimentality of blood and violence. It's a high-wire act that constantly risks failure but succeeds brilliantly. Highly recommended to anyone interested in contemporary fiction.
140 pages, not 176 as stated.
Format:Paperback
The Iraqi Christ is more of a fiction book for a man than a woman. All the reviews that I have read about this book are from men. As a women I could not get into any of the stories. As a woman I am more into Family drama, Romance Chic-Lit and crime fiction psychological books. The guardian states that this is perhaps the best writer of Arabic Fiction alive. Which I totally agree with.The Iraqi Christ is translated by Jonathan Wright.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
