I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody: Sinan Antoon

I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody
By Sinan Antoon
Available June 2007
ISBN 0-87286-457-x
Paperback, 168 pp
$11.95
Pre-order Sale Price$8.37

An inventory of the General Security headquarters in central Baghdad reveals an obscure manuscript. Written by a young man in detention,the prose movesfrom prison life, to adolescent memories, to frightening hallucinations, and what emerges is a portrait of life in Saddam's Iraq.

In the tradition of Kafka's The Trial, or Orwell's 1984, I'jaam offers an insight into life under an oppressive political regime and how that oppression works. This is a stunning debut by a major young Iraqi writer-in-exile.

"Sinan Antoon writes with an assurance of voice, a clear redefinition of form and narrative, and compelling and beautiful language. Iraqi in origin, but global in its scope, this book is deeply human." ­ Chris Abani, author of The Virgin of Flames and GraceLand

"Sinan Antoon's I'Jaam is a stunning work, as it brings to the present a world of terror we know about, we have previously read about, but which usually seems remote, unreal. It takes a great talent to make it so specific, so Iraqi in this case, and so personal. This author shows the particular sadistic humor that goes with cruelty, a "cultural" slant that makes us identify it with the places where it happens. Evil becomes thus both general, universal, and particular. The nightmare gains familiarity, reality." ­ Etel Adnan, author of Sitt Marie Rose and In the Heart of Another Country

Sinan Antoon's novel traces, across time, space and faces, how the life of a young generation under a barbaric regime becomes an existential minefield. Life is no more what it is. Everything is a trace of itself. Even daily language is cluttered with debris from the mines of hell. Incessantly targeted in a nightmarish atmosphere, the individual can only save him/herself with the stubbornness of an animal." ­ Saadi Youssef, author ofWithout an Alphabet, Without a Face: Selected Poems

"In this beautiful and brilliant novel, Sinan Antoon expresses the voice of those whose voices were robbed by oppression, stressing the fact that literature can at times be the only framework to protect human experiences from falling into oblivion. I`jaam is an honest and exciting window onto Iraq, written with both love and bitter sarcasm, hope and despair. It does
not only illuminate reality in Iraq prior to the American invasion, but also the human experience in its insistence on resisting oppression and injustice." ­ Elias Khoury, author of Gate of the Sun

"Brief, bitter and bracing, I'jaam displays all the dangerous prismatic grace and light of shattered glass. Nuanced and direct, Antoon's razor-sharp voice rises out of the prisons and mass graves of Iraq during the era when Saddam Hussein enjoyed U.S. government support and no one heard these voices silenced in their tens and hundreds of thousands. The hopeful tenderness of this voice goes on speaking now, and we can be grateful that a new translation allows us, finally, to hear it. In this time of endless war, it tells (again) a story we needed so many lives ago." ­ Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex

Sinan Antoon (Baghdad, 1967) has published in leading international journals and has co-directed, "About Baghdad," an acclaimed documentary about Iraq under U.S. occupation. In June 2007, Harbor Mountain Press will be publishing a book of poetry by Sinan, The Baghdad Blues.