| Author: | Bakhtiyar Ali | ISBN: | 9781859641293 |
| Publisher: | Garnet Publishing (UK) Ltd | Publication: | September 30, 2016 |
| Imprint: | Garnet Publishing | Language: | English |
| Author: | Bakhtiyar Ali |
| ISBN: | 9781859641293 |
| Publisher: | Garnet Publishing (UK) Ltd |
| Publication: | September 30, 2016 |
| Imprint: | Garnet Publishing |
| Language: | English |
Iraqi Kurdistan at the turn of the twenty-first century is a territory ruled by strongmen, revolutionaries, fixers, bureaucrats and the “Barons” who control everything from livestock and land to Kurdish cultural life. Defying the absolute power wielded by the Barons, a band of friends led by a poet embarks on an odyssey to find the bodies of two lovers killed unjustly by the authorities. The Barons respond by attempting to crush these would-be avengers, though their real war is waged against the imagination itself – a prized, elusive commodity for which intellectuals, merchants, political elites and humble workers all search in one way or another. Told by several unreliable narrators in a kaleidoscope of fragments that all eventually cohere, this novel is a lyrical allegory of contemporary Kurdistan – so much in the news nowadays, but so little understood.
Iraqi Kurdistan at the turn of the twenty-first century is a territory ruled by strongmen, revolutionaries, fixers, bureaucrats and the “Barons” who control everything from livestock and land to Kurdish cultural life. Defying the absolute power wielded by the Barons, a band of friends led by a poet embarks on an odyssey to find the bodies of two lovers killed unjustly by the authorities. The Barons respond by attempting to crush these would-be avengers, though their real war is waged against the imagination itself – a prized, elusive commodity for which intellectuals, merchants, political elites and humble workers all search in one way or another. Told by several unreliable narrators in a kaleidoscope of fragments that all eventually cohere, this novel is a lyrical allegory of contemporary Kurdistan – so much in the news nowadays, but so little understood.
