Mahmoud Saeed

Kay Heikkinen

In beautifully descriptive language, Mahmoud Saeed sends us a series of postcards from the Morocco of the late 1960's, as seen through the eyes of a young political exile from Iraq. He shows us beauty, misery and a panoply of personalities, including one of the most striking enchantresses in Arabic literature since Scheherazade. Through it all he weaves an absorbing tale of passion, politics, vengeance and betrayal-with undertones that resonate today-and gives us a unique portrait of a people, a place and a time that will long remain with the reader.

Ben Barka Lane

FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF AWARD-WINNING NOVEL BANNED IN IRAQ. In Ben Barka Lane we see the Morocco of the late 1960s through the eyes of a young political exile from Iraq—its beauty and misery, its unforgettable people. In this contemporary classic, Mahmoud Saeed offers us a unique portrait of a time and place, and a tale of the passion, politics, vengeance, and betrayal that take place there. "A landmark of the modern Arab novel," in the words of one critic, Ben Barka Lane is now, at last, in English translation, as compelling today as when first published.

A Portal in Space, set in Basra, Iraq, during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), follows the lives of Anwar, a newly minted architect, and the other members of his affluent family as they attempt to maintain a sense of normality during the frequent bombing attacks from Iran. When Anwar joins the Iraqi army and then goes missing in action, his family struggles to cope with uncertainty over his fate. His mother falls into depression and secludes herself in the family home, while his father shifts his attention from his duties as a judge to the weekly pilgrimage to Baghdad seeking information on his son—and to Zahra, the young widow he meets there. Emotionally engaging, A Portal in Space is a wry, wise tale of human beings striving to retain their humanity during a war that is anything but humane. Mahmoud Saeed succeeds brilliantly in bringing the sights and sounds of Iraq to life on the page—whether in a bunker on the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War or in the parlor of a fortune-teller in Baghdad. As Zahra says of the novel she is writing: “It is a normal novel that contains love, war, life, deceit, and death.”

Mahmoud Saeed

About

Books

Join the club