The latest issue of Banipal, the London-based magazine of modern Arab literature, shows Iraqi fiction writers and poets getting to grips with the country's tumultuous history, particularly since the US and British-led invasion of 2003. Given the exodus of Iraqi writers over the past decades, Iraqi literary life has been scattered across the globe. Banipal was keen to identify writers inside and outside Iraq, and to celebrate “a new generation of Iraqi fiction writers and poets who are free to write the story of Iraq we've been waiting for.” More than half the 224 pages of Banipal 37 are devoted to the writing of 21 Iraqi authors, some of whom have never before been published in English translation. The issue kicks off with an account by the Berlin-based fiction writer and translator Hussain Al-Mozany of a visit he made to Baghdad with more than 30 other Iraqi writers, critics and artists – “a trip filled with anxiety, worry and dread.” Al-Mozany alludes to a degree of tension between Iraqi writers in exile and those who remained in Iraq. He likens contemporary Baghdad to “a giant, torn plastic bag overflowing with scraps and refuse”, a fertile ground for sectarian violence. Al-Mozany concludes: “Yes, Iraq is dying now in full view of us all. Day after day we hear its death rattle.” Not all the Iraqi writers featured in Banipal 37 are preoccupied with the conditions of today. From the late great man of Iraqi letters Mahdi Issa Al-Saqr, who was born in Basra in 1930 and died four years ago, there is an extract from the 1998 novel “East Winds, West Winds” set in the oil fields of Basra under British control in the mid-20th century. The English translation of the novel by Professor Paul Starkey, head of Arabic at Durham University's School of Modern Languages and Culture, was recently published in Egypt by the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press, and in the UK by Arabia Books. Al-Saqr's skills as a storyteller are evident from the novel extract, rendered in an enjoyably flowing and well-judged translation. Lutfiya Al-Dulaimi, who now lives in Jordan, is the author of ten published books of fiction, five plays and three collections of essays. Banipal 37 contains two episodes from her novel “The Book of the Girls”, published in Amman last year under the title “Saydat Zahal” (Saturn Ladies). The novel is centered on a group of Iraqi women who have fled the horrors of Baghdad for Amman. One of them, Manar, has survived an attack by sectarian militants in which she was raped and left for dead, and her doctor mother and university teacher brother were murdered. Another of the women, the outspoken Rawiyya, has shocked her friends with her marriage to a people smuggler after the disappearance of the man she loved. She suggests to the first person narrator: “Hayat, let's not just forget it all. Write it down for us before we die. Record our stories.” Al-Dulaimi's graphic description of the attack on Manar and her family is one of several instances of extreme violence depicted by the writers in Banipal 37. A chapter from Nassif Falak's as yet unpublished novel “The Worm” takes the form of the stream of consciousness of an abducted man who has witnessed the beheading of three men seized with him. He awaits his fate with intense fear. There are several short stories by Iraqi writers in Banipal. In her short story “Nausea”, Enas Al-Badran captures the nightmarish, random quality of daily life as experienced by a woman leaving her home for the first time in a long period. In Diya Al-Jubaily's “A Deadly Joke”, a man who takes his grandson to buy a bicycle in a market is caught in a bomb explosion. Two of the Iraqis featured in Banipal 37 are among the 39 Arab authors, aged 39 or less, identified as being of particular interest by the ‘Beirut39' project's panel of judges last October. One is the novelist, poet, painter and journalist Ahmad Saadawi. The extract from his novel “He is Dreaming or Playing or Dying”, translated by Issa J. Ballouta, is set in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm and Saddam's crushing of the uprisings in southern and northern Iraq. In all there are 11 Iraqi poets in Banipal 37. Khalid Al-Maaly, born in al-Samawa in 1956, is a poet, translator, and publisher and founded the respected publishing house Al-Kamel Verlag in Cologne, Germany. He is now located in Beirut. Iraqi poet and novelist Sinan Antoon has translated nine of his poems for Banipal 37 as well as two poems by Mohammad Mazloom, including “Where is Gilgamesh, O Columbus?” In addition to the work of Iraqi authors, Banipal 37 includes work from writers from several other Arab countries. The English translation by Peter Daniel of Egyptian novelist Mohamed El-Bisatie's 2006 book “Drumbeat” was published a few weeks ago by AUC Press. The excerpt from the novel sees events through the eyes of the foreign driver of a wealthy sheikh in an unnamed Emirate. When the Emirate's national team qualifies for the world cup, the ruler proclaims that all citizens should travel to France to support the team. The Emirate is left in the hands of the foreign workers. From Yemeni novelist Ali Mohammad Zayd, there is an engrossing excerpt from “Coffee Blossom” translated by Thomas Aplin. The issue also has Marilyn Hacker's translation of the opening of the epic poem “This Particular Tartar” by Algerian Habib Tengour, one of the best known francophone poets of the Maghreb. Banipal 35 was focused on Arabs who write in Dutch, and this theme is picked up in the current issue with Greet Ramael's essay on authors with Arab roots who write in Flemish, the Belgian form of Dutch. Among the writers mentioned by Ramael is Rachida Lamrabet who is of Moroccan origin and whose writing is often inspired by her work as a lawyer at the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism in Brussels. The issue includes Lamrabet's gentle short story “Ammetis, the Sleeper”, narrated by a male fetus growing in the womb of an anxious migrant woman of Arab origin. Aware of his mother's worries about him, the fetus stops developing and starts sleeping.
