Lexington Books
Pages: 222
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-1-4985-9462-2 • Hardback • January 2020 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-4985-9463-9 • eBook • January 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Ronen Zeidel is research fellow in the Moshe Dayan Center in Tel Aviv University and deputy director of the Center for Iraq Studies in the University of Haifa.
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Shīʿa in Iraqi Novels
Chapter 2: Sunnis and Novels in Iraq
Chapter 3: The Iraqi Novel and the Kurds
Chapter 4: The Iraqi Novel and the Christians of Iraq
Chapter 5: Gypsies in the Iraqi Novel: Between Marginality, Folklore and Romanticism
Chapter 6: On the Last Jews of Iraq and Iraqi National Identity: A Look at Two Recent Iraqi Novels
Conclusion: From Self Identity to Pluralism
Index
Bibliography
About the Author
Ronen Zeidel’s excellent book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the history of modern Iraq, in post-dictatorship societies, especially those that had been afflicted for generations by malignant ethno-religious conflict. The book is also inspiring for those who are looking for a ray of hope. Zeidel shows how, almost over-night after 2003, Iraqi culture began to celebrate diversity and pluralism rather than suppressing it as was the case before the downfall of the Ba’th regime. The book shows how culture and particularly the novel became a tool for repairing the wrongs of past nation building attempts, and the vehicles for formulating a more inclusive national Iraqi identity. Zeidel covers a remarkably wide horizon of production mainly of young novelists and his analysis is an eye-opener.
— Amatzia Baram, University of Haifa