Recomanat per en Lluís propietari de l'espai Anònims de Granollers

Iraq (Kurdistan)

Reviewers aren't clear whether this is fiction or memoir. It appears to be best treated as "fictionalized memoir." Azad Selim is a young boy in Iraqi Kurdistan. As the Baathist regime gains power, his community's life becomes increasingly miserable and its insurgency increases. The book is interesting but choppy and artless, a story without a plot. It is useful for its portrait of Kurdish villages and concerns, and to show U.S. readers a different side of Iraq's conflicts. It is also oddly refreshing to read a book from someone under Iraqi authority who (with his community) applauds Saddam Hussein's overthrow.
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En lille, men meget sigende fortælling om kurdernes omtumlede historie med udgangspunkt i den kurdiske dreng, Azads historie. ( )

A short memoir that makes clear the pain and frustration of life for a boy growing up a citizen of a nation that exists fully only in its people’s dreams: Kurdistan. ( )

The recent attacks by Turkey on Kurdish territories in northern Iraq (which went largely unreported in the West, it being Christmas and all…) prompted me to pick up this short book, which has been on my TBR pile for over a year. In less than 150 pages, this ever-so-slightly fictionalised memoir managed to educate and move me deeply. This is essentially the story of Hiner Saleem's childhood and youth, as one of 20-25 million Kurds spread out across the mountainous regions of southern Turkey, eastern Syria, western Iran and – more specifically here – northern Iraq: together, it’s the largest ethnic group not to have its own nation. We follow his alter ego, Azad, as his happy childhood with a loving family turns into desperate years in a refugee camp, followed by arguably worse years back in his home town, under the oppressive regime of the newly-declared president, one Saddam Hussein.

I found every level of this book fascinating. The politics are, in a sense, peripheral to the central story, but were enlightening nonetheless. The experience of oppression, and the intense love for the Kurdish nation, were excellently demonstrated. The "coming-of-age" aspect of Azad's personal development rang very true. And, for me, the most moving parts, though not in the foreground, were those displaying the deep love felt between the narrator and each of his parents, as well as his siblings.

I was initially unsettled by the prose style, which is rather simple and stilted, rarely beautiful. I thought about comparing it with the original French, but after a while it started to annoy me less, as I identified a child’s innocence and openness in the voice, with certain sentences that were devastating in their dispassion and directness. I’m happy to recommend this book. ( )