Conflicting Narratives: War, Trauma and Memory in Iraqi Culture

Abstract

CONFLICTING NARRATIVES: WAR, TRAUMA, AND MEMORY IN IRAQI CULTURE edited by Stephan Milich, Friederike Pannewick, and Leslie Tramontini Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2012 (x v iii + 268 pages) $99.00 (clot h)Looking at Iraq from our current vantage point it is easy to forget the rich cultural history contained within the borders of a country that has been plagued by warfare for over thirty years, with each catastrophic event seemingly overshadowing the previous one. Iraq has had no shortage of writers and intellectuals. In the latter half of the twentieth century some of the Arab world's most important poets emerged from the country; names like Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Nazik al-Mala'ika, and 'Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati- among many others-need no introduction for anyone with the slightest familiarity with modern Arabic poetry. Their stories are well known, and their contribution to the shape of modern Arabic literature is undeniable. Yet far less has been written, particularly in English, about the writers and cultural figures from the final quarter of the last century until the present day. What happened to Iraqi cultural production during the terrifying years of Ba'thist rule, under the sanctions of the 1990s, or following the 2003 US invasion and occupation? What has been the role of the Iraqi intellectual since then, and how has Iraqi culture responded to the memories and traumas of recent, violent pasts? Moreover, who, for that matter, can speak in the name of Iraq at a time when the country is more fragmented than ever before and an increasing number of writers live abroad?In response to these questions, in December 2008 a conference entitled "Cultural Voices of a Fragmented Nation: War, Trauma and Remembrance in Contemporary Iraq" took place at the Phillips-Universitat in Marburg, Germany. Much of Conflicting Narratives: War, Trauma, and Memory in Iraqi Culture grew from this conference. The edited volume consists of four sections: "Cultural and Political Narratives"; "Poetics of Trauma"; "The Dialectics of Home and Exile"; and "Shahadat: Essays on the Poetic Semantics of the 'Iraqi Place.'" The final section contains five additional essays translated from the 2009 collection of articles edited by Basran novelist and short story writer Lu'ay Hamza 'Abbas entitled al-Makan al-'Iraqi: Jadal al-Kitaba wa-lTajriba (The Iraqi place: Debating writing and experience). While the goals of the book are ambitious, it does an admirable job of introducing readers to contemporary debates about Iraqi literary production.The book's essays reflect important recent trends in scholarship on Iraqi culture, originating in scholarly works written primarily in Arabic by Iraqi intellectuals who critically treat Iraqi cultural production, especially literature, inside and outside the country from approximately 1979 until the present day. The most notable of these studies are Salam 'Abbud's Thaqafat al-'Unf fi al-'Iraq (The culture of violence in Iraq) and 'Abbas Khidr's alKhakiyya: Min Awraq al-Jarima al-Thaqafiyya fial-'Iraq (Khaki: Documents of cultural crime in Iraq), both published in Cologne by al-Jamal in 2002 and 2005, respectively, and both of which are cited frequently throughout the book. They are scathing critiques of cultural production under the Iraqi Ba'th Party, and if at points they seem overly caustic in their criticism (an arguably justifiable excess, given the level of fear that existed during Ba'thist rule), they are nevertheless essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Iraqi literature and cultural history. At the same time, much of the literary scholarship in Conflicting Narratives reflects more recent Englishlanguage studies of Iraqi fiction and poetry written by a younger generation of writers including Muhsin al-Ramli, Hassan Blasim, Sinan Antoon, and Inaam Kachachi. Much of this material deals with the consequences of the US-led invasion and subsequent wars and unrest since 2003.The first section of Conflicting Narratives, entitled "Cultural and Political Narratives," consists of three articles individually written by cultural critic Fatima Mohsen, literary scholar Leslie Tramontini, and historian Hala Fattah. …