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    Baghdad Noir
    Baghdad Noir
    Baghdad Noir
    Audiobook8 hours

    Baghdad Noir

    Written by Samuel Shimon

    Narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Brand-new stories by: Sinan Antoon, Ali Bader, Mohammed Alwan Jabr, Nassif Falak, Dheya al-Khalidi, Hussain al-Mozany, Layla Qasrany, Hayet Raies, Muhsin al-Ramli, Ahmed Saadawi, Hadia Said, Salima Salih, Salar Abdoh, and Roy Scranton.

    From the introduction by Samuel Shimon:"While all Iraqis will readily agree that their life has always been noir, the majority of the stories in Baghdad Noir are set in the years following the American invasion of 2003, though one story is set in 1950 and three are set in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet it is this recent history of Iraq—over the last few decades—that serves to inform its present . . . Cementing the destruction of Iraqi life was Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But that was hardly the end of Iraq’s noir story. In April 2003, the US invasion, though it precipitated the end of Saddam’s dictatorial rule, killed off any possibility of a secular, modern Iraq once and for all.

    "Taken as a whole, the stories in Baghdad Noir testify to the enduring resilience of the Iraqi spirit amid an ongoing, real-life milieu of despair that the literary form of noir can at best only approximate. Yet the contributions here manage to hold their own as individual stories, where the rich traditions of intersecting cultures transcend the immediate political reality—even while being simultaneously informed by it. Much like the diverse tapestry of cultures that join together on the banks of the Tigris to form the City of Peace, Baghdad Noir reveals that there’s nothing monolithic or ordinary about the voices of its writers."

    Editor's Note

    Landmark…

    This gripping collection of crime noir dives into the diverse, modern experiences of the ancient city’s citizens. With stories exclusively by Iraqi authors, “Baghdad Noir” is an edgy testament to a resilient culture. The resulting work is a “landmark” according to Publishers Weekly, “as perhaps the first collection of Iraqi crime fiction ever published.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEverand Productions
    Release dateMay 4, 2021
    ISBN9781094416380
    Author

    Samuel Shimon

    Samuel Shimon is the co-founder and deputy editor of Banipal, a highly respected magazine of new Arab writing in English translation. He is also the founder and editor of Kikah, the most popular cultural website in Arabic. His autobiographical novel An Iraqi in Paris was long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Writer and publisher Samuel Shimon was born into a poor Assyrian family in Iraq in 1956. He left his country in 1979 to go to Hollywood and become a film-maker, travelling via Damascus, Amman, Beirut, Nicosia, Cairo and Tunis. In 1985 he settled in Paris as a refugee, before moving in 1996 to London, where he has lived ever since. He co-founded Banipal, the renowned international magazine of contemporary Arab literature in English translation and is the founder and editor of the popular literary website in Arabic www.kikah.com. He also edited Beirut 39: New Writing from the Arab World (2010). He is working now on his second novel The Militant Lingerie.

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    Reviews for Baghdad Noir

    4.5/5

    17 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I think dad enj goes the book. If he does not enjoy a book he tells me.
    • 5/5
      Interesting and a great introduction to a new culture. Great