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Иракският Христос
В Иракският Христос, втората си книга, Хасан Бласим (1973, Багдад), събира 13 разказа в стила, познат ни от "Лудият от площад “Свобода”: трескави построения на преситен от разруха ум; срещи на народната разказваческа традиция с експресионистичната поезия в репортажен декор; чудновати картини, нахвърляни със средствата на искреността, болката и екзалтацията. И в този сборник по непредвидими начини живее и умира съвременен Ирак: разговор с джин в пролука на време-пространството; лов на скорпиони с лъжица; един Христос, който се жертва заедно с другите в името на майка си; яйце от заек, което събаря високата кула на фалшивата логика... “Не можеш да разбереш красотата без спокойствие, нито да се доближиш до истината без ужас.”
Великолепни, непрощаващи, борхесовски сюжети... Историите на Хасан Бласим отново и отново отговарят на въпроса “как от насилието да се направи изкуство” откъм най-различни ракурси – стъписващи, плашещи, омагьосващи.
– Lit Hub
Богат и важен сборник с разкази, едновременно елегантен и ироничен, изискан и вулгарен, брутален и предизвикателен. Без съмнение – едно от най-силните литературни произведения на годината във всички категории.
– Svenska Dagbladet
Прозата на Бласим отразява не само травмите от войни и борби за оцеляване, а и тежкия исторически багаж на Ирак: десетилетия на колониално потисничество, последвани от години деспотична диктатура... Неговите разкази не са реалистични нито в журналистическия, нито в белетристичния смисъл: в Иракският Христос има истории в историята и остроумни металитературни трикове, които подсещат за Кафка, Балард и Остър. Литературата на Бласим не се свени от кръвта, секса, кощунството или мизерията, но и не ги ползва като евтини ефекти.
– The Skinny Magazine
Иракският Христос – за първи път в историята арабска книга печели наградата на "Индипендънт" за чуждестранна литература; за първи път я печели и сборник с разкази – ползва средствата на репортажа, мемоара и най-мрачното фентъзи, за да опише съвременен Ирак като сюрреалистична преизподня. От легендите на пустинята до страхотиите на гората – разказите на Бласим сливат ежедневното с фантастичното...
– The Irish Times
Великолепни, непрощаващи, борхесовски сюжети... Историите на Хасан Бласим отново и отново отговарят на въпроса “как от насилието да се направи изкуство” откъм най-различни ракурси – стъписващи, плашещи, омагьосващи.
– Lit Hub
Богат и важен сборник с разкази, едновременно елегантен и ироничен, изискан и вулгарен, брутален и предизвикателен. Без съмнение – едно от най-силните литературни произведения на годината във всички категории.
– Svenska Dagbladet
Прозата на Бласим отразява не само травмите от войни и борби за оцеляване, а и тежкия исторически багаж на Ирак: десетилетия на колониално потисничество, последвани от години деспотична диктатура... Неговите разкази не са реалистични нито в журналистическия, нито в белетристичния смисъл: в Иракският Христос има истории в историята и остроумни металитературни трикове, които подсещат за Кафка, Балард и Остър. Литературата на Бласим не се свени от кръвта, секса, кощунството или мизерията, но и не ги ползва като евтини ефекти.
– The Skinny Magazine
Иракският Христос – за първи път в историята арабска книга печели наградата на "Индипендънт" за чуждестранна литература; за първи път я печели и сборник с разкази – ползва средствата на репортажа, мемоара и най-мрачното фентъзи, за да опише съвременен Ирак като сюрреалистична преизподня. От легендите на пустинята до страхотиите на гората – разказите на Бласим сливат ежедневното с фантастичното...
– The Irish Times
144 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 2013
59 people are currently reading
1587 people want to read
About the author
Hassan Blasim
23 books282 followersHassan Blasim (born 1973) is an Iraqi-born film director and writer who lives in Finland. He writes in Arabic.He is co-editor of the Arabic literary website http://www.iraqstory.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 134 reviews
September 10, 2015
On a bus in Helsinki, a bearded man from the Middle East somewhere sits reading a book with Arabic lettering. After whispering amongst themselves, one of the passengers eventually works up the courage to ask him if he's reading the Quran. The presumed terrorist tries to look as friendly as he can when explains (yet again) that no, he's reading Kafka in Arabic translation.
This isn't an episode from The Iraqi Christ (though a similar one pops up), but something Blasim mentioned in a talk I saw him give this spring. But it captures some of the mood of this weird, mad, hilarious, agonizing, plainspoken, blood-drenched, heartfelt, surreal collection of stories. Not just because the spirit of Kafka soars all over (or rather, creeps right through) much of it, but because it's the sort of absurdity that shows up in every story - only, in Blasim's stories, the stakes tend to be much higher. The tales here are about people who try to just go on with their lives, the ones who have to fight for their lives, the ones who try to flee, the ones who make it and end up living in a country they're not allowed to call home.
Everyone staying at the refugee reception centre has two stories – the real one and the one for the record. The stories for the record are the ones the new refugees tell to obtain the right to humanitarian asylum, written down in the immigration department and preserved in their private files. The real stories remain locked in the hearts of the refugees, for them to mull over in complete secrecy. That’s not to say it’s easy to tell the two stories apart. They merge and it becomes impossible to distinguish them.
Reality is thin, blown apart by one too many torture sessions or wars or car bombs that scar the entire collective unconsciousness; magic can happen, you just don't have any control. In Blasim's stories, people compete on radio over who suffered the most during their time in Saddam's prisons; soldiers stumble into holes in the ground occupied by dead soldiers from other wars in other countries; immigrants find themselves trapped in their own bathroom in the middle of a big peaceful city while a wolf paces outside; refugees try to explain to immigration officers how they ended up starring in Youtube videos for dozens of different terrorist groups, alternately as terrorist and kidnap victim; etc etc etc.
We watched the adults’ wars on television and saw how the front ate up our elders. Our mothers baked bread in clay ovens and sat down in the sunset hour, afraid and with tears in their eyes. We would steal sweets from shops, climb trees and break our legs and arms. Life and death was a game of running, climbing and jumping, of watching, of secret dirty words, of sleep and nightmares.
Iraq has been one of the most reported-on countries in the world over the last 30 years. We count the dead by the hundreds of thousands, if we count them at all. Quick, name three Iraqi works of fiction that's not A Thousand And One Nights; hell, name three Iraqis known for anything un-war-related at all. Blasim gives voice to both suicide bombers and authors, thugs and lovers, football players and dogs, crossword makers and grieving mothers, all complex characters with their own stories, who fuck and drink and work and weep and kill and live and die and are all just as real as any angsting Franzen character. That shouldn't, in itself, be necessary - but we shouldn't need to see 3-year-olds washing ashore to get it either. But of course, in the end, that's not what makes this great, and neither are the dozens of literary references (from having a character jump out of a fifth-floor hospital window, to an Iraqi emigrant renaming himself Carlos Fuentes to pass as South American) which are both good fun and very deftly handed. This isn't literature to scratch off a check list of odd countries, or simple message fiction. These are stories that have come through both hell and heaven, been chiseled and knocked about and scarred and filigreed until they shine. Or, y'know, don't.
If there was a special search engine for dreams, like Google, all dreamers would find their dreams in works of art. The dreamer would put a word, or several words, from his dream into the Dream Search Engine, and thousands of results would appear. The more the search is narrowed down, the closer he gets to his dream and eventually he finds out it’s a painting or a piece of music or a sentence in a play. He would also find out which country his dream was in. Yes, you know. Maybe life... okay, fuck that.
This isn't an episode from The Iraqi Christ (though a similar one pops up), but something Blasim mentioned in a talk I saw him give this spring. But it captures some of the mood of this weird, mad, hilarious, agonizing, plainspoken, blood-drenched, heartfelt, surreal collection of stories. Not just because the spirit of Kafka soars all over (or rather, creeps right through) much of it, but because it's the sort of absurdity that shows up in every story - only, in Blasim's stories, the stakes tend to be much higher. The tales here are about people who try to just go on with their lives, the ones who have to fight for their lives, the ones who try to flee, the ones who make it and end up living in a country they're not allowed to call home.
Everyone staying at the refugee reception centre has two stories – the real one and the one for the record. The stories for the record are the ones the new refugees tell to obtain the right to humanitarian asylum, written down in the immigration department and preserved in their private files. The real stories remain locked in the hearts of the refugees, for them to mull over in complete secrecy. That’s not to say it’s easy to tell the two stories apart. They merge and it becomes impossible to distinguish them.
Reality is thin, blown apart by one too many torture sessions or wars or car bombs that scar the entire collective unconsciousness; magic can happen, you just don't have any control. In Blasim's stories, people compete on radio over who suffered the most during their time in Saddam's prisons; soldiers stumble into holes in the ground occupied by dead soldiers from other wars in other countries; immigrants find themselves trapped in their own bathroom in the middle of a big peaceful city while a wolf paces outside; refugees try to explain to immigration officers how they ended up starring in Youtube videos for dozens of different terrorist groups, alternately as terrorist and kidnap victim; etc etc etc.
We watched the adults’ wars on television and saw how the front ate up our elders. Our mothers baked bread in clay ovens and sat down in the sunset hour, afraid and with tears in their eyes. We would steal sweets from shops, climb trees and break our legs and arms. Life and death was a game of running, climbing and jumping, of watching, of secret dirty words, of sleep and nightmares.
Iraq has been one of the most reported-on countries in the world over the last 30 years. We count the dead by the hundreds of thousands, if we count them at all. Quick, name three Iraqi works of fiction that's not A Thousand And One Nights; hell, name three Iraqis known for anything un-war-related at all. Blasim gives voice to both suicide bombers and authors, thugs and lovers, football players and dogs, crossword makers and grieving mothers, all complex characters with their own stories, who fuck and drink and work and weep and kill and live and die and are all just as real as any angsting Franzen character. That shouldn't, in itself, be necessary - but we shouldn't need to see 3-year-olds washing ashore to get it either. But of course, in the end, that's not what makes this great, and neither are the dozens of literary references (from having a character jump out of a fifth-floor hospital window, to an Iraqi emigrant renaming himself Carlos Fuentes to pass as South American) which are both good fun and very deftly handed. This isn't literature to scratch off a check list of odd countries, or simple message fiction. These are stories that have come through both hell and heaven, been chiseled and knocked about and scarred and filigreed until they shine. Or, y'know, don't.
If there was a special search engine for dreams, like Google, all dreamers would find their dreams in works of art. The dreamer would put a word, or several words, from his dream into the Dream Search Engine, and thousands of results would appear. The more the search is narrowed down, the closer he gets to his dream and eventually he finds out it’s a painting or a piece of music or a sentence in a play. He would also find out which country his dream was in. Yes, you know. Maybe life... okay, fuck that.
May 3, 2024
Non si può capire la bellezza senza tranquillità né ci si può avvicinare alla verità senza orrore.
Sono strani questi racconti. Parlano di guerra, morti, sangue e violenza ma anche di fiducia, legami familiari e amore.
Tutto questo messo ripetutamente in discussione.
Un popolo che vive ai margini del caos, una guerra che non avrà mai fine.
Blasim è un rifugiato politico che parla del suo popolo, al suo popolo con un umorismo nero a farne da padrone.
Luoghi devastati dalla guerra, dove l'idea di paura è completamente differente da quella europea.
Qua si da voce ai morti, ai mondi sotterranei, alla prostituzione e agli omicidi.
Forse ci sono troppi modi di leggere ed interpretare queste storie, forse per questo si deve essere nel mood giusto per affrontare questa lettura ed io non so se l' ho letto al momento giusto.
☆☆☆,5
Sono strani questi racconti. Parlano di guerra, morti, sangue e violenza ma anche di fiducia, legami familiari e amore.
Tutto questo messo ripetutamente in discussione.
Un popolo che vive ai margini del caos, una guerra che non avrà mai fine.
Blasim è un rifugiato politico che parla del suo popolo, al suo popolo con un umorismo nero a farne da padrone.
Luoghi devastati dalla guerra, dove l'idea di paura è completamente differente da quella europea.
Qua si da voce ai morti, ai mondi sotterranei, alla prostituzione e agli omicidi.
Forse ci sono troppi modi di leggere ed interpretare queste storie, forse per questo si deve essere nel mood giusto per affrontare questa lettura ed io non so se l' ho letto al momento giusto.
☆☆☆,5
September 11, 2015
This is the first 2014 IFFP book which has a fascinating strangeness similar to the Best Translated Book Award listed titles. Hassan Blasim's (and I'd guess the real) Iraq is like a fictional dystopia - except it's not fictional. None of that overly familiar creeping ominousness technique as an author slowly pulls the curtain back on more invented horrors: no need for silly games here, all this is part of every day life. I've never read any modern Arabic fiction before so I'm going to sound like a patronising idiot and describe this as a mixture of gritty realism and Arabian Nights-like fantasy. There's a cover quote from John M. Harrison, and that indicates this is hardly straight realist fiction. The stories are also funnier and dirtier and filled with more drink and drugs (it's a rare character who isn't stoned at some point) than I would have expected. I have no idea of how material like this is *really* regarded by most people in the Arab world, aside from the obvious views of fundamentalists. Blasim's work has been banned in Jordan, one of the few Arab countries where it has been published in print.
There's so very much happening here, a rush of images and events, different things several times a page sometimes, also off-kilter metafictional uses of author-as-character. Too much? I don't think so, it's all part of the unusualness emphasising a different world. A few of the stories feel like short action movies. I had imagined life in Iraq to be at least as strictly controlled as that in the Soviet Eastern Bloc, but what The Iraqi Christ presents is a wild-west lawlessness, at least when the secret police don't catch you and inflict terrible punishments. These are mostly stories of young-ish men: some mobile between countries, armed at various points, whether for crime, war or self-defence - and in their youth they get into the sort of lascivious scrapes that I thought characteristic of their well-off counterparts in mid-twentieth century European literature: reading illicit literature like Rimbaud, visiting prostitutes, trying to talk to beautiful inaccessible girls (described like that, it reminds me of Fellini films). This article mentions Arab writers' growing up reading European authors, and that the South American writers who popularised “magic realism” were influenced by Arab tradition .
Blasim now lives in Finland - such an interesting combination of cultures (I daresay such a comment sounds pretty annoying to people from these places.) - and a few of the stories are set there, not always flattering about the place.
I really want to re-read this collection: it's very rich and there must be all sorts of detail to pick up on a second read - and it's only 140 pages - but I've promised it to a friend so notes on the stories will have to suffice for now. These little summaries really don't convey the strength and strangeness of the writing.
--------------
Song of the Goats. People gather for a storytelling event by a radio station that specialises in broadcasting citizens' past experiences during the dictatorship and wars. Most of the story then concentrates on a boy and his experiences of his family and of being a fugitive – so much more lively and bizarre and disgusting than that sounds. This whole story is in the Kindle sample – it's a good introduction, though not all the stories are so violent. (There is quite a lot of violence but there isn't much fine detail about individual events and internal experience of them, it's more like the level of detail you'd get in news reports.)
The Hole. Fleeing a robbery, a Baghdad shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits a djinni and the corpse of a soldier from a completely different war… [blurb]
The Fifth Floor Window. Men in hospital. Also childhood reminiscence of capturing scorpions with a female friend.
The Iraqi Christ. A soldier with the ability to predict the future finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror… [blurb]
The Green Zone Rabbit.
A Wolf. An Iraqi man living in an unspecified western country comes home from a night out and finds a wolf living in his flat.
Crosswords. A deviser of crosswords survives a car-bomb attack, only to discover he is now haunted by one of its victims… [blurb]
Dear Beto. Narrated by a former stray dog who was adopted by a dissolute Finnish artist. Partly reminiscent of Kafka in the way it's not an entirely convincing narrative by an animal as we've grown used to them being done, sometimes it could be as if he's forgotten he's a dog not a person. Or maybe that's the point. (I had various gripes with some of the stories in a Kafka collection, here.)
Perhaps a metaphor for refugees, but the story, this book, is too bloody weird to have any straightforward meaning, proper art - under that interpretation 'Dear Beto' would provide rather threatening views of both sides. If the underlying theme of the collection is “trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it”, as stated on the back cover then yes, it fits, just not with the most palatable views.
The Killers and the Compass. A boy and his psychopathic gangster older brother. A compass with mystical properties.
Why Don't You Write A Novel Instead Of Talking About All These Characters? A party of middle-eastern refugees are arrested in Hungary and taken into a refugee residential centre. The narrator is one man but sometimes he is Blasim, sometimes he has another name, background and identity.
Sarsara's Tree. A woman is found wandering in the wilderness. She has the power to make poisonous trees spring up all around her.
The Dung Beetle. Various themes and narratives fold into this, including many paragraphs and anecdotes addressed to a doctor / doctors. They could be spoken one person or many. Evidently a riff on Metamorphosis.
A Thousand and One Knives. A mixed-sex group of friends have magical power over knives: some can make them disappear, some can make them reappear.
There's so very much happening here, a rush of images and events, different things several times a page sometimes, also off-kilter metafictional uses of author-as-character. Too much? I don't think so, it's all part of the unusualness emphasising a different world. A few of the stories feel like short action movies. I had imagined life in Iraq to be at least as strictly controlled as that in the Soviet Eastern Bloc, but what The Iraqi Christ presents is a wild-west lawlessness, at least when the secret police don't catch you and inflict terrible punishments. These are mostly stories of young-ish men: some mobile between countries, armed at various points, whether for crime, war or self-defence - and in their youth they get into the sort of lascivious scrapes that I thought characteristic of their well-off counterparts in mid-twentieth century European literature: reading illicit literature like Rimbaud, visiting prostitutes, trying to talk to beautiful inaccessible girls (described like that, it reminds me of Fellini films). This article mentions Arab writers' growing up reading European authors, and that the South American writers who popularised “magic realism” were influenced by Arab tradition .
Blasim now lives in Finland - such an interesting combination of cultures (I daresay such a comment sounds pretty annoying to people from these places.) - and a few of the stories are set there, not always flattering about the place.
I really want to re-read this collection: it's very rich and there must be all sorts of detail to pick up on a second read - and it's only 140 pages - but I've promised it to a friend so notes on the stories will have to suffice for now. These little summaries really don't convey the strength and strangeness of the writing.
--------------
Song of the Goats. People gather for a storytelling event by a radio station that specialises in broadcasting citizens' past experiences during the dictatorship and wars. Most of the story then concentrates on a boy and his experiences of his family and of being a fugitive – so much more lively and bizarre and disgusting than that sounds. This whole story is in the Kindle sample – it's a good introduction, though not all the stories are so violent. (There is quite a lot of violence but there isn't much fine detail about individual events and internal experience of them, it's more like the level of detail you'd get in news reports.)
The Hole. Fleeing a robbery, a Baghdad shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits a djinni and the corpse of a soldier from a completely different war… [blurb]
The Fifth Floor Window. Men in hospital. Also childhood reminiscence of capturing scorpions with a female friend.
The Iraqi Christ. A soldier with the ability to predict the future finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror… [blurb]
The Green Zone Rabbit.
A Wolf. An Iraqi man living in an unspecified western country comes home from a night out and finds a wolf living in his flat.
Crosswords. A deviser of crosswords survives a car-bomb attack, only to discover he is now haunted by one of its victims… [blurb]
Dear Beto. Narrated by a former stray dog who was adopted by a dissolute Finnish artist. Partly reminiscent of Kafka in the way it's not an entirely convincing narrative by an animal as we've grown used to them being done, sometimes it could be as if he's forgotten he's a dog not a person. Or maybe that's the point. (I had various gripes with some of the stories in a Kafka collection, here.)
Perhaps a metaphor for refugees, but the story, this book, is too bloody weird to have any straightforward meaning, proper art - under that interpretation 'Dear Beto' would provide rather threatening views of both sides. If the underlying theme of the collection is “trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it”, as stated on the back cover then yes, it fits, just not with the most palatable views.
The Killers and the Compass. A boy and his psychopathic gangster older brother. A compass with mystical properties.
Why Don't You Write A Novel Instead Of Talking About All These Characters? A party of middle-eastern refugees are arrested in Hungary and taken into a refugee residential centre. The narrator is one man but sometimes he is Blasim, sometimes he has another name, background and identity.
Sarsara's Tree. A woman is found wandering in the wilderness. She has the power to make poisonous trees spring up all around her.
The Dung Beetle. Various themes and narratives fold into this, including many paragraphs and anecdotes addressed to a doctor / doctors. They could be spoken one person or many. Evidently a riff on Metamorphosis.
A Thousand and One Knives. A mixed-sex group of friends have magical power over knives: some can make them disappear, some can make them reappear.
June 28, 2014
Rating: 3* of five
The Publisher Says: A soldier with the ability to predict the future finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror…
A deviser of crosswords survives a car-bomb attack, only to discover he is now haunted by one of its victims…
Fleeing a robbery, a Baghdad shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits a djinni and the corpse of a soldier from a completely different war…
From legends of the desert to horrors of the forest, Blasim’s stories blend the fantastic with the everyday, the surreal with the all-too-real. Taking his cues from Kafka, his prose shines a dazzling light into the dark absurdities of Iraq’s recent past and the torments of its countless refugees. The subject of this, his second collection, is primarily trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it (including, of course, fiction). The result is a masterclass in metaphor – a new kind of story-telling, forged in the crucible of war, and just as shocking.
My Review: This book won The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2014.
It's not instantly obvious to me why it won such a prestigious prize, not because it's a poorly written book, but because it's much of a muchness with the many, many story collections there are in the world. I'm not sorry to have read it, but I am not sure I'll remember much about most of it. It's fine, it's evocative of time and place, it's a very economical piece of writing. But the BEST FOREIGN FICTION published in 2013?
I dunno 'bout that one for sure, but most of me says "not a damn chance."
Anyway, to the trenches:
"The Song of the Goats" is a modest story about a man whose family is completely insane, not least of all his good self.
I relate. 3 stars
"The Hole" is a parable. A jinni in a hole that traps people fleeing certain death. ~meh~ Read it before, nothing new to say and not much fun to read. 2 stars
"The Fifth Floor Window" brings home the stunning, insanity-inducing reality of "collateral damage" by way of cancer patients in a Baghdad hospital. Three men in a room, only one can think past the horrors of the war in the hospital courtyard.
One can see where his taste for phauntaisee arose from. 4 stars
"The Iraqi Christ" is the title story, and resembles a sort of "Appointment in Samarra" narrated by the victim...Daniel the Christian saves his compatriots with his premonitions, until one day he doesn't, and for no reason I can figure out. 3.5 stars
"The Green Zone Rabbit" offers a bleak look at the street level of murder in the name of god, a subject guaranteed to exercise my outrage muscles. The narrator has a familiar personality:
Don't we all know someone a bit like that? Why is everyone staring at me? 4 stars
"A Wolf" is the maundering, drunken bar story of an immigrant man trying to make a sodden kind of sense of a world he doesn't begin to understand.
Out of the mouths of drunks... 3.5 stars
"Crosswords" takes a terrible moment of violent sectarian idiocy and makes it worse with the intersection of PTSD and Spring-Heeled Jack. Chilling. 3.5 stars
"Dear Beto" purports to be the philosophical musings of a Finnish dog. I don't doubt that there is some metaphorical gubbins in here. Frankly, I couldn't care less. 2 stars, all for this line: "You can't understand beauty without peace of mind and you can't get close to the truth without fear."
"The Killers and the Compass" marks the rite of passage of a kid into manhood (of a horrifying sort) in a brutal, nihilistic culture of viciousness. Impossible to read without despairing of the future, the present, and the past. Pass the razor blades. 3 stars
"Why Don't You Write A Novel, Instead of Talking About All These Characters?" seems to want to ask the question, "what makes a good story out of the dreadful, iniquitous, dreary stuff of reality?" The answer is, "not this." 2 stars
"Sarsara's Tree" is a pretty fable about the incredible power of loss to break the consensus of lies we call reality into unfamiliar shards. Also, don't take milk-soaked flowers from strange little girls. 3.5 stars
"The Dung Beetle", or as I like to call it, "The Origins of an Iraqi Man as a Writer in a Freakin' Cold Climate That Makes His Desert-Born Brain Go Doolally." 2.5 stars
"A Thousand and One Knives" just frankly couldn't keep my interest, and it seemed to be about some guy who had some stuff happen to him and porno pics with torture figured into it somehow and then there's a baby who materializes knives...I dunno, whatever, just MAKE IT STOP!
Fortunately, this was the last story.
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The Publisher Says: A soldier with the ability to predict the future finds himself blackmailed by an insurgent into the ultimate act of terror…
A deviser of crosswords survives a car-bomb attack, only to discover he is now haunted by one of its victims…
Fleeing a robbery, a Baghdad shopkeeper falls into a deep hole, at the bottom of which sits a djinni and the corpse of a soldier from a completely different war…
From legends of the desert to horrors of the forest, Blasim’s stories blend the fantastic with the everyday, the surreal with the all-too-real. Taking his cues from Kafka, his prose shines a dazzling light into the dark absurdities of Iraq’s recent past and the torments of its countless refugees. The subject of this, his second collection, is primarily trauma and the curious strategies human beings adopt to process it (including, of course, fiction). The result is a masterclass in metaphor – a new kind of story-telling, forged in the crucible of war, and just as shocking.
My Review: This book won The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2014.
It's not instantly obvious to me why it won such a prestigious prize, not because it's a poorly written book, but because it's much of a muchness with the many, many story collections there are in the world. I'm not sorry to have read it, but I am not sure I'll remember much about most of it. It's fine, it's evocative of time and place, it's a very economical piece of writing. But the BEST FOREIGN FICTION published in 2013?
I dunno 'bout that one for sure, but most of me says "not a damn chance."
Anyway, to the trenches:
"The Song of the Goats" is a modest story about a man whose family is completely insane, not least of all his good self.
On more than one occasion I heard how life apparently advances, moves on, sets sail or, at worst, apparently crawls slowly forward. My life, on the other hand, simply exploded like a firecracker in the hand of God, a small flare in his mighty firmament of bombardment.
I relate. 3 stars
"The Hole" is a parable. A jinni in a hole that traps people fleeing certain death. ~meh~ Read it before, nothing new to say and not much fun to read. 2 stars
"The Fifth Floor Window" brings home the stunning, insanity-inducing reality of "collateral damage" by way of cancer patients in a Baghdad hospital. Three men in a room, only one can think past the horrors of the war in the hospital courtyard.
The operation would be in a week...I didn't know if I would survive. How I longed to go back to reading! There was nowhere I longed to be more than the university campus. I was preparing for a master's on fantasy literature. I was interested in why the country's literature did not include this distinctive genre. I had this great passion for studying and writing, which they explained in my household with the story of the umbilical cord. When I was born, and at my father's request, my elder sister buried my umbilical cord in the courtyard of her primary school. My father attributed my {brother's} academic failure to the fact that my mother buried his umbilical cord in the garden of our house.
One can see where his taste for phauntaisee arose from. 4 stars
"The Iraqi Christ" is the title story, and resembles a sort of "Appointment in Samarra" narrated by the victim...Daniel the Christian saves his compatriots with his premonitions, until one day he doesn't, and for no reason I can figure out. 3.5 stars
"The Green Zone Rabbit" offers a bleak look at the street level of murder in the name of god, a subject guaranteed to exercise my outrage muscles. The narrator has a familiar personality:
The pleasure I found in reading books was disconcerting...I felt anxious about every new piece of information. I would latch onto one particular detail and start look for references and other versions of it in other writings. I remembered, for example, that for quite some time I tracked down the subject of kissing. I read and read and felt dizzy with the subject, as if I had eaten a psychotropic fruit.
Don't we all know someone a bit like that? Why is everyone staring at me? 4 stars
"A Wolf" is the maundering, drunken bar story of an immigrant man trying to make a sodden kind of sense of a world he doesn't begin to understand.
...I believe in dreams more than I believe in God. Dreams get into you and leave, then come back with new fruit, but God is just a vast desert.
Out of the mouths of drunks... 3.5 stars
"Crosswords" takes a terrible moment of violent sectarian idiocy and makes it worse with the intersection of PTSD and Spring-Heeled Jack. Chilling. 3.5 stars
"Dear Beto" purports to be the philosophical musings of a Finnish dog. I don't doubt that there is some metaphorical gubbins in here. Frankly, I couldn't care less. 2 stars, all for this line: "You can't understand beauty without peace of mind and you can't get close to the truth without fear."
"The Killers and the Compass" marks the rite of passage of a kid into manhood (of a horrifying sort) in a brutal, nihilistic culture of viciousness. Impossible to read without despairing of the future, the present, and the past. Pass the razor blades. 3 stars
"Why Don't You Write A Novel, Instead of Talking About All These Characters?" seems to want to ask the question, "what makes a good story out of the dreadful, iniquitous, dreary stuff of reality?" The answer is, "not this." 2 stars
"Sarsara's Tree" is a pretty fable about the incredible power of loss to break the consensus of lies we call reality into unfamiliar shards. Also, don't take milk-soaked flowers from strange little girls. 3.5 stars
"The Dung Beetle", or as I like to call it, "The Origins of an Iraqi Man as a Writer in a Freakin' Cold Climate That Makes His Desert-Born Brain Go Doolally." 2.5 stars
"A Thousand and One Knives" just frankly couldn't keep my interest, and it seemed to be about some guy who had some stuff happen to him and porno pics with torture figured into it somehow and then there's a baby who materializes knives...I dunno, whatever, just MAKE IT STOP!
Fortunately, this was the last story.
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January 3, 2024
A very well written collection of near-parables, that are like pin pricks all over you as you read them, reminding you time and again how much of the world and its sufferings we are unaware of. Iraq is a notorious term in American (and in fact, most First World) literature, and so bringing out the human origin and cost of that notoriety can't be an easy feat to achieve.
The stories take up disparate opening positions, with the only underlying thread being their sense of loss, as being affected by an unending war that's not of their choice. There are some fantastical / SFF aspects in some stories, but by and large, this is a literary achievement that totally deserves the international accolades it has garnered.
Brutal doesn't even come close to describing some of the living conditions the stories describe. Yet, each story clearly attempts to paint a humane picture of a people that are nevertheless moved and impacted by the mundane aspects of life - just like every other human being on this planet. What makes their plight worth reading and knowing is that they are suffering while being poor and hungry and, at times, homeless.
Reading these tales reminds you that at the end of the day, while collectively men may want and wage war, individually all men want the same thing - food, clothing, shelter, safety and a loving family to share all that with. Everyday we find innumerable differences between "us" and "them" - be it language, dress, appearance, religion, habits, cuisine, body odor, skin color... and overlook all the ways we are identical - same heart, same pair of eyes, same hunger for love, affirmation and belonging, and the desire to leave our mark on the sand - as we walk out of this world.
The stories take up disparate opening positions, with the only underlying thread being their sense of loss, as being affected by an unending war that's not of their choice. There are some fantastical / SFF aspects in some stories, but by and large, this is a literary achievement that totally deserves the international accolades it has garnered.
Brutal doesn't even come close to describing some of the living conditions the stories describe. Yet, each story clearly attempts to paint a humane picture of a people that are nevertheless moved and impacted by the mundane aspects of life - just like every other human being on this planet. What makes their plight worth reading and knowing is that they are suffering while being poor and hungry and, at times, homeless.
Reading these tales reminds you that at the end of the day, while collectively men may want and wage war, individually all men want the same thing - food, clothing, shelter, safety and a loving family to share all that with. Everyday we find innumerable differences between "us" and "them" - be it language, dress, appearance, religion, habits, cuisine, body odor, skin color... and overlook all the ways we are identical - same heart, same pair of eyes, same hunger for love, affirmation and belonging, and the desire to leave our mark on the sand - as we walk out of this world.
June 30, 2019
The violence which permeates Blasim's short stories is reflected in their language; jarring, colloquial and awash with vituperation, Blasim's depictions of Iraq and Finland abound with a sense of loneliness and isolation, of love and loss juxtaposed with a sense of magic, with the miraclous power of fiction whereby Blasim is able to conjure lives and stories from his head, just the old lady Sarasar, grieving for her lost son, whilst being held captive by the beauty of the waters of the Nabi, is able to spring forth trees via her imagination.
The strongest stories in this collection are 'A Thousand and One Knives', which juxtaposes the story of a man crippled by war whose sole passion is refereeing youth football matches with a trick whereby he can make knives disappear with the cruelty and callousness of the Iraqi regime and 'Crosswords' which depicts the disintegration of a man who is possessed by the ghost of a police-man whose death in a suicide bombing attack he witnesses. Indeed, these stories represent Blasim at his best, his ability to coalesce the gritty realism of his story with fantastical elements reminds the reader of the best elements of magical realism and its ability to represent the horrors of a world dominated by violence and oppression. Interspersed within this are the feeling if isolation and solitude of the various Iraqi characters who have sought asylum in Finland; its bleak, cold and aloof atmosphere standing in stark contrast to the blazing heat and kaleidoscope of colours and emotions encountered in their native Iraq.
Although at times the writing can come across as slightly jarring and clumsy-whether through an issue with the translation or whether this is reflective of Blasim's slightly unrefined style, overall these short stories represent a powerful depiction of life a Iraq beset with violence and Finland best with emptiness, of people striving to find a meaning in the world which appears to be devoid of any.
The strongest stories in this collection are 'A Thousand and One Knives', which juxtaposes the story of a man crippled by war whose sole passion is refereeing youth football matches with a trick whereby he can make knives disappear with the cruelty and callousness of the Iraqi regime and 'Crosswords' which depicts the disintegration of a man who is possessed by the ghost of a police-man whose death in a suicide bombing attack he witnesses. Indeed, these stories represent Blasim at his best, his ability to coalesce the gritty realism of his story with fantastical elements reminds the reader of the best elements of magical realism and its ability to represent the horrors of a world dominated by violence and oppression. Interspersed within this are the feeling if isolation and solitude of the various Iraqi characters who have sought asylum in Finland; its bleak, cold and aloof atmosphere standing in stark contrast to the blazing heat and kaleidoscope of colours and emotions encountered in their native Iraq.
Although at times the writing can come across as slightly jarring and clumsy-whether through an issue with the translation or whether this is reflective of Blasim's slightly unrefined style, overall these short stories represent a powerful depiction of life a Iraq beset with violence and Finland best with emptiness, of people striving to find a meaning in the world which appears to be devoid of any.
July 6, 2018
The short story collection The Iraqi Christ, translated by Jonathan Wright from Hassan Blasim's original, won the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, forerunner of the relaunched Man Booker International. The judges citation:
Comma's own mission statement is to put the short story at the heart of contemporary narrative culture. Through innovative commissions, collaborations and digital initiatives, we will explore the power of the short story to transcend cultural and disciplinary boundaries, and to enable greater understanding across these boundaries.
and The Iraqi Christ certainly fulfils that aim, providing a violent and dark depiction of society, mainly but not entirely centered on post-invasion Iraq, one that successfully manages to combine fabulism with the brutal and bloody reality of daily life under the insurgency and civil war. Kafka is an acknowledged influence and the his Little Fable, quoted in one of the stories, is particularly apposite:
This review expresses both the strengths of the work, and some of my reservations, far more eloquently than I could.
http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-...
3.5 stars although a worthy IFFP winner.
Think Irvine Welsh in post-war and post-Saddam Baghdad, with the shades of Kafka and Burroughs also stalking these sad streets. Often surreal in style and savage in detail, but always planted in heart-breaking reality, these 14 stories depict a pitiless era with searing compassion, pitch-black humour and a sort of visionary yearning for a more fully human life. Jonathan Wright’s translations convey all their outrage, their sorrow, their ribald merriment and blistering imaginative vitality.The English translation was published by Comma Press, another of the UK's wonderful small independent publishers - who in 2017 bought us the excellent and very different You Should Come With Me Now: Stories of Ghosts. Comma Press are also founders of The Northern Fiction Alliance, a publishing collective that now also includes Peepal Tree Press, Dead Ink, And Other Stories, Bluemoose Books, Tilted Axis Press, Mayfly Press, Route and Saraband.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...
Comma's own mission statement is to put the short story at the heart of contemporary narrative culture. Through innovative commissions, collaborations and digital initiatives, we will explore the power of the short story to transcend cultural and disciplinary boundaries, and to enable greater understanding across these boundaries.
and The Iraqi Christ certainly fulfils that aim, providing a violent and dark depiction of society, mainly but not entirely centered on post-invasion Iraq, one that successfully manages to combine fabulism with the brutal and bloody reality of daily life under the insurgency and civil war. Kafka is an acknowledged influence and the his Little Fable, quoted in one of the stories, is particularly apposite:
"Alas," said the mouse, "the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run."In one story, the narrator, accused of being the author, is confronted as to the nature of his stories:Why don’t you write a novel, instead of talking about all these characters - Arabs, Kurds, Pakistanis, Sudanese, Bangladeshis and Africans? They would make for mysterious, traditional stories. Why do you cram all these names into one short story? Let the truth come to life on all its simplicity. Read in 2018, there is an obvious point of comparison to the 2018 MBI shortlisted novel Frankenstein in Baghdad, and to my personal taste the more fragmented nature of The Iraqi Christ was less successful.
"But you’ve only got to run the other way," said the cat, and ate it.
This review expresses both the strengths of the work, and some of my reservations, far more eloquently than I could.
http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-...
3.5 stars although a worthy IFFP winner.
May 4, 2024
Sono seduto davanti al computer. Passa, davanti ai miei occhi, un libro curioso. Il cristo iracheno. Sbatto le palpebre diverse volte. Qualcosa di enigmatico pervade la mia mente. Ero assopito dal quotidiano vivere. La noia la faceva da padrone. Tutto nella norma. Il libro mi fa scattare una scintilla di speranza. Speranza di cosa? Ancora immerso in elucubrazioni varie, lo prenoto in biblioteca. Passano alcuni giorni. Ecco il messaggio di notifica per il ritiro in sede. La scintilla si rianima, dopo giorni di sopore. Edizioni Utopia + titolo curioso = che cosa? Lo scoprirò.
Mi rigiro il testo diverse volte fra le mani. Lo sfoglio qua e là. Leggiucchio le frasi poste sul retro. Leggo la biografia dell'autore. La curiosità si amplifica... ancora una volta. L'autore è scappato dal suo paese. L'Iraq. Era un dissidente. Un pericolo per il regime. Si nasconde. Emigra in Finlandia.
Passa qualche giorno. Il libro è lì in attesa. In attesa di cosa? Nessuno lo sa. Nemmeno io. Passano libri, storie su storie, volumi vari. Lui rimane sempre lì in attesa del suo momento. Arriverà? Se sì, quando? Ecco che la scintilla riprende a luccicare con più fermento. Lo prendo e inizio un nuovo viaggio.
Una raccolta di racconti. Racconti assai brevi e molto incisivi. Crudi. Reali. Surreali. Onirici. La guerra che tutto distrugge. Le vite spezzate per non si sa che cosa. I sogni immersi in altri sogni. L'amore che in tempo di guerra cerca di emergere dal putridume. L'amicizia, la solidarietà. Le bombe. Grottescamente affascinante. Un caleidoscopio di emozioni. Uno spazio ricavato dove la vita è considerata come un vecchio e lurido scarpone. Il sogno di una vita migliore. L'accettazione della verità. Quella nuda e cruda. E...
Mi rigiro il testo diverse volte fra le mani. Lo sfoglio qua e là. Leggiucchio le frasi poste sul retro. Leggo la biografia dell'autore. La curiosità si amplifica... ancora una volta. L'autore è scappato dal suo paese. L'Iraq. Era un dissidente. Un pericolo per il regime. Si nasconde. Emigra in Finlandia.
Passa qualche giorno. Il libro è lì in attesa. In attesa di cosa? Nessuno lo sa. Nemmeno io. Passano libri, storie su storie, volumi vari. Lui rimane sempre lì in attesa del suo momento. Arriverà? Se sì, quando? Ecco che la scintilla riprende a luccicare con più fermento. Lo prendo e inizio un nuovo viaggio.
Una raccolta di racconti. Racconti assai brevi e molto incisivi. Crudi. Reali. Surreali. Onirici. La guerra che tutto distrugge. Le vite spezzate per non si sa che cosa. I sogni immersi in altri sogni. L'amore che in tempo di guerra cerca di emergere dal putridume. L'amicizia, la solidarietà. Le bombe. Grottescamente affascinante. Un caleidoscopio di emozioni. Uno spazio ricavato dove la vita è considerata come un vecchio e lurido scarpone. Il sogno di una vita migliore. L'accettazione della verità. Quella nuda e cruda. E...
May 17, 2024
লেখক যেভাবে সাধারণের সাথে অ্যাবজার্ড ���েশান, কিছু কিছু ক্ষেত্রে ফ্যান্টাসি মনে হয়। সেই সাথে মনে হয়ে যায় বর্তমানে আমাদের জীবনটাই তো ফ্যান্টাসি৷ কাফকার প্রভাব ছিল গোটা বই জুড়ে৷ উপভোগ্য৷
November 13, 2017
Ще разбера който го хареса. Ще разбера и който не го хареса. Лична живописна волност с обществените фондове на черната мъка е това. Мисля си, че хората са доста чувствителни към отношението към мъката: повечето са убедени, че около нея трябва да се кротува в тих полумрак. В краен случай - че причините ѝ трябва да се изобличават. Хасан Бласим не е убеден, че му се правят тези две неща и прави други.
ПП. Вече знам как се ловят скорпиони!
ПП. Вече знам как се ловят скорпиони!
July 3, 2017
"Irački Hristos" je druga po redu zbirka priča (prva je "Ludak sa Trga slobode" - obe je objavila beogradska Geopoetika u prevodu Srpka Leštarića) iračkog pisca i reditelja Hasana Blasima. Za ovu knjigu autor je dobio nagradu lista "Indipendet" za najbolju beletrističku knjigu na stranom jeziku. Zbirku čini jedanaest priča koje u sebi sabiraju sav tragizam arapskog života. Blasim je veoma poetički osvešćen pisac što se vidi po formi, stilu i metatekstualnim komentarima unutar pojedinih priča. Iako veći deo ovih narativa crpi svoju građu iz mračne svakodnevice života u Iraku, autor je svoju prozu oneobičio povremenim izletima u fantastiku i onostrano. Pošto je i sam kao migrant prošao kroz pakao krijumčarenja ljudima, uspeo je da i to svoje iskustvo veoma pažljivo utka u ove priče. Čitajući "Iračkog Hristosa", razmišljao sam da bi se i za Bagdad, kao i za nama daleko poznatiji regionalni toponim koji ima isti broj slova kao iračka prestonica a istim slovom i počinje, moglo reći da je - bure baruta. Detalj koji mi se posebno svideo nalazi se u priči "Sarsarino drvo" i tiče se saveta koji je istoimena junakinja uputila pripovedaču - da se u simboličnom smislu seti svih mesta kojih je zaboravio da se uželi. Neke od ovih priča vredelo bi i više puta pročitati.
October 13, 2024
3,8 ⭐
Una colección de trece cuentos, en promedio, buenos; hay algunos excelentes y otros más flojos; y como me suele ocurrir, algunos que no entendí.
Algunos pocos cuentos están ambientados en Finlandia, aunque la mayoría ocurren en Irak, particularmente en Bagdad. Y más allá de las historias, personajes y reflexiones, aparece el trasfondo de la violencia que ha castigado al país en las últimas décadas.
Algunos de los cuentos son realistas, aunque hay algunos con situaciones insólitas (como El pozo), o con ribetes que me hicieron acordar a la inocencia del personaje de Matadero Cinco (El cristo iraquí), aunque todos con buenos personajes y gran creatividad.
Lo mejor que he leído de Irak por el momento.
Hassan Blassim nació en Bagdad en 1973, y desde hace muchos años vive en Finlandia. Es cineasta y guionista, y este es su primer libro de cuentos.
Una colección de trece cuentos, en promedio, buenos; hay algunos excelentes y otros más flojos; y como me suele ocurrir, algunos que no entendí.
Algunos pocos cuentos están ambientados en Finlandia, aunque la mayoría ocurren en Irak, particularmente en Bagdad. Y más allá de las historias, personajes y reflexiones, aparece el trasfondo de la violencia que ha castigado al país en las últimas décadas.
Algunos de los cuentos son realistas, aunque hay algunos con situaciones insólitas (como El pozo), o con ribetes que me hicieron acordar a la inocencia del personaje de Matadero Cinco (El cristo iraquí), aunque todos con buenos personajes y gran creatividad.
Lo mejor que he leído de Irak por el momento.
Hassan Blassim nació en Bagdad en 1973, y desde hace muchos años vive en Finlandia. Es cineasta y guionista, y este es su primer libro de cuentos.
June 30, 2013
What the fuck did I just read? What?
There's probably enough magic realism in this that I could justify putting it on the SFF shelf but for now I think I just need some time to process it.
Blasim's also editing an anthology of stories set in Iraq 2103 that's supposed to come out next year, I'll definitely be picking that up.
There's probably enough magic realism in this that I could justify putting it on the SFF shelf but for now I think I just need some time to process it.
Blasim's also editing an anthology of stories set in Iraq 2103 that's supposed to come out next year, I'll definitely be picking that up.
Read
January 17, 2025обожавам тази поредица <3
June 28, 2021
An amazing collection. Every single story is extraordinary...and devastating. My own favorite is "Dear Beto," about which nothing more should be said. It needs to be read.
April 4, 2022
Horror can be found at the switch of a television remote.
It takes a real maestro to take those horrors, the horrors of war and famine and inhumanity, and weave them into a series of tales that shred at your flesh before stabbing at your heart.
Incredible, destructive prose.
It takes a real maestro to take those horrors, the horrors of war and famine and inhumanity, and weave them into a series of tales that shred at your flesh before stabbing at your heart.
Incredible, destructive prose.
March 26, 2020
Jag älskade detta. Perfekt magisk realism. Avvägningen mellan det mjuka mänskliga och det instrumentell och fruktansvärda kriget. Rycks med och förrycks
November 26, 2023
Il Cristo iracheno è una raccolta di racconti che si leggono molto velocemente. Questi racconti mi hanno un po' spiazzato per la loro crudezza. Era da tanto che non leggevo storie così tetre e deprimenti, e non ce n'è una che abbia un qualcosa di positivo, uno spiraglio di luce in fondo al tunnel per sperare in un futuro migliore. Forse solo l'ultimo racconto ha una briciola di spensieratezza e felicità (coniugale).
L'autore, iracheno rifugiatosi in Finlandia nel 2004, parla della devastazione fisica, mentale e psicologica delle guerre. Nei racconti non specifica a quali guerre irachene si riferisce perché alla fin fine non cambia niente: ogni guerra porta solo morte, distruzione, disperazione, dolore e spesso anche pazzia.
"Eravamo bombardati da ogni direzione: dall'ignoto, dalla realtà, da Dio, dalla gente, perfino i morti di tormentavano."
"La vita e la morte erano un gioco di corse, arrampicate, salti, panorami, parolacce segrete, sonno e incubi."
Le storie sono cruente, piene di parolacce, e alcune sono anche dissacranti. Il bene e il male si confondono, non c'è più una linea di demarcazione chiara perché tutto ruota soltanto intorno alla sopravvivenza. Lo scrittore non vuole sbalordire con la sua crudezza, ma vuole dimostrare a cosa portano le guerre e che l'essere umano è pronto a tutto per sopravvivere, per proteggersi o per salvare i propri cari.
L'autore, iracheno rifugiatosi in Finlandia nel 2004, parla della devastazione fisica, mentale e psicologica delle guerre. Nei racconti non specifica a quali guerre irachene si riferisce perché alla fin fine non cambia niente: ogni guerra porta solo morte, distruzione, disperazione, dolore e spesso anche pazzia.
"Eravamo bombardati da ogni direzione: dall'ignoto, dalla realtà, da Dio, dalla gente, perfino i morti di tormentavano."
"La vita e la morte erano un gioco di corse, arrampicate, salti, panorami, parolacce segrete, sonno e incubi."
Le storie sono cruente, piene di parolacce, e alcune sono anche dissacranti. Il bene e il male si confondono, non c'è più una linea di demarcazione chiara perché tutto ruota soltanto intorno alla sopravvivenza. Lo scrittore non vuole sbalordire con la sua crudezza, ma vuole dimostrare a cosa portano le guerre e che l'essere umano è pronto a tutto per sopravvivere, per proteggersi o per salvare i propri cari.
October 4, 2013
This rating reflects effectiveness and skill more than my enjoyment.
It's a harrowing collection of short fictions in which relentlessly dreadful things happen and strip people of their humanity and dignity in plain-spoken matter-of-fact ways. It's agonizing to read. But it was interesting also to feel the undercurrent of Arabic beneath the translation, and even when some of the fantasy devices seemed cliché to me, the feeling of them being spoken in Arabic, in a different context of literary inheritance, kept refreshing them.
These are also stories that undo themselves, that dissolve, that break apart. Very few of them close a short-story circle. Mostly voices yield to voices and agony is layered on agony. Like the traumatic occurrences it presents, it's a book that needs to be recovered from while making the prospect of recovery bleak and chancy at best.
I want to read it in Arabic.
It's a harrowing collection of short fictions in which relentlessly dreadful things happen and strip people of their humanity and dignity in plain-spoken matter-of-fact ways. It's agonizing to read. But it was interesting also to feel the undercurrent of Arabic beneath the translation, and even when some of the fantasy devices seemed cliché to me, the feeling of them being spoken in Arabic, in a different context of literary inheritance, kept refreshing them.
These are also stories that undo themselves, that dissolve, that break apart. Very few of them close a short-story circle. Mostly voices yield to voices and agony is layered on agony. Like the traumatic occurrences it presents, it's a book that needs to be recovered from while making the prospect of recovery bleak and chancy at best.
I want to read it in Arabic.
April 30, 2023
un capolavoro.
August 25, 2015
It was a strange collection of short stories, passed off as fantasy. I guess maybe there were some fanciful things, but the subject matter and underlying themes deal with the brutality of war. I could only read this in small doses. Like one story every few months. I can only imagine what it must mean to be an author and your cannot be/or isn't published in your own country.
December 15, 2020
Terrific - more later.
This one looks intriguing, but a bit worried by the violence in it (going by the review I read), eg: 'A Pakistani asylum seeker is conned by his fellow workers into putting his arm into a barrel of setting concrete so that they can rape him.'
This one looks intriguing, but a bit worried by the violence in it (going by the review I read), eg: 'A Pakistani asylum seeker is conned by his fellow workers into putting his arm into a barrel of setting concrete so that they can rape him.'
November 8, 2018
В торбата с шарени бонбони на "Кратки разкази завинаги" Хáсан Блáсим е лакриц.
March 26, 2021
Хората живеят, чувстват, мразят, скучаят, смеят се, плачат, бягат, връщат се, и всичко останало. А бобмите се взривяват - понякога тихо, понякога шумно. Но за жалост, твърде често - успешно.
June 19, 2018
Zbirka 11 priča iračkog autora, koji sad živi u Finskoj, i koji je ovo izdao u samizdat fazonu, na sajtovima, pa su ih kasnije skupljali u knjige. Priče su vrlo brze (većina ih je na 8-12 strana) i direktne. Nema se tu mnogo čekanja i predstavljanja likova, začas shvataš da je pripovedač atentator koji treba nekoga da ubije ili da je glavni lik usred poluratnog Bagdada i da se priča za njega neće završiti lepo. Blasim uglavnom priča o životu u Iraku za vreme ili posle rat(ov)a, ili o ljudima na koje je taj rat uticao na često vrlo direktan način.
Dve priče su sjajne, Irački Hristos i Ukrštene reči. Hiljadu i jedan nož i Zec iz zelene zone su takođe veoma dobre. Sad, da li se zaista radi o "trenutno najboljem arapskom piscu", kako je negde pomenuto ja ne mogu da sudim... Rekao bih da ne, u suprotnom jadna je tolika književnost, ali svakako vredi pročitati ovu zbirku zbog ove četiri pripovetke.
Dve priče su sjajne, Irački Hristos i Ukrštene reči. Hiljadu i jedan nož i Zec iz zelene zone su takođe veoma dobre. Sad, da li se zaista radi o "trenutno najboljem arapskom piscu", kako je negde pomenuto ja ne mogu da sudim... Rekao bih da ne, u suprotnom jadna je tolika književnost, ali svakako vredi pročitati ovu zbirku zbog ove četiri pripovetke.
August 29, 2017
Sudbina likova koji kroz ovozemaljski zivot u svojoj zemlji iskuse pakao. Svakodnevne razarujuce bombe, kidnapovanja, mucenja, gradjanski rat, korupcija, krijumcarenje ljudi, glad, sverc vode... a tek posljedice svega toga...
Predjeli gdje je krhki mir samo uspavani vulkan.
Zadnja prica koja nosi naziv 1001 noz je sigurno tu da na trenutak podsjeti citaoca na onaj Bagdad koji je nekad bio mjesto desavanja nekih bajkovitih i zavodljivih avantura iz 1001 noci, a danas vec nekih mnogo tragicnijih.
Predjeli gdje je krhki mir samo uspavani vulkan.
Zadnja prica koja nosi naziv 1001 noz je sigurno tu da na trenutak podsjeti citaoca na onaj Bagdad koji je nekad bio mjesto desavanja nekih bajkovitih i zavodljivih avantura iz 1001 noci, a danas vec nekih mnogo tragicnijih.
December 9, 2018
Сюрреализмът явно не е моят стил. След всеки разказ се чудех какво всъщност съм прочела, и най-вече защо. Сладкодумен, но определено твърде много в облака.
April 8, 2024
"Blásimove poviedky sú neuveriteľne sureálne, brutálne drsné no takmer vždy ukotvené v surovej realite. Prelína sa v nich každodenné s fantastickým, mŕtvi ožívajú a zvieratá rozprávajú príbehy so silnou dávkou čierneho humoru. Próza reflektuje temné absurdity irackej nedávnej minulosti a útrapy irackých utečencov, pričom autorovo makabrózne spisovateľské umenie majstrovsky demaskuje ako vojna vplýva na ľudské bytosti."
Toť o Irackom mesiášovi, najnovšom prírastku brakovskej edície Dezorient express, hlása mimoriadne výstižná anotácia, ktorá doslova zabíja a ničí moju potrebu ku knihe čokoľvek dodať či povedať. Veď čo by som aj hovorila, keď to hlavné, potrebné či podstatné o zbierke vám svojským spôsobom rozpovie aj sama?
S morbídne pôsobiacim úsmevom a absurdnou dávkou nefalšovanej arabskej fantázie si vás k sebe usadí, bezstarostne mykne pomyselným plecom a kúsok po kúsku zo seba čo-to odhalí. O vojakoch aj civilistoch. O obetiach aj preživších. O ľuďoch, ktorí zostali i o tých, ktorí sa snažili uniknúť. O tých, ktorí to vzdali i o tých, ktorí sa o život a neistú budúcnosť rozhodli ďalej bojovať.
Vojaci, kripli, preludy aj džinovia, násilníci, iluzionisti, smútiace matky aj osirelí synovia. Hassan Blásim skrz to reálne i skrz to magické, fiktívne či prosto vymyslené, približuje zložité príbehy ešte zložitejších postáv. Zručne pomedzi ne kľučkuje, miestami nesmelo zakopáva, inokedy oduševnene skacká a kde-tu sa zvedavo pristaví, no či už na svet nahliada ako na čosi bizarné, absurdné, tragické či jednoducho nechutne krvavé, robí tak spôsobom, ktorému nemožno vzdorovať.
Vťahuje jedinečným štýlom, dusí odkazom, ubíja realitou. Výborné, no temné čítanie.
Toť o Irackom mesiášovi, najnovšom prírastku brakovskej edície Dezorient express, hlása mimoriadne výstižná anotácia, ktorá doslova zabíja a ničí moju potrebu ku knihe čokoľvek dodať či povedať. Veď čo by som aj hovorila, keď to hlavné, potrebné či podstatné o zbierke vám svojským spôsobom rozpovie aj sama?
S morbídne pôsobiacim úsmevom a absurdnou dávkou nefalšovanej arabskej fantázie si vás k sebe usadí, bezstarostne mykne pomyselným plecom a kúsok po kúsku zo seba čo-to odhalí. O vojakoch aj civilistoch. O obetiach aj preživších. O ľuďoch, ktorí zostali i o tých, ktorí sa snažili uniknúť. O tých, ktorí to vzdali i o tých, ktorí sa o život a neistú budúcnosť rozhodli ďalej bojovať.
Vojaci, kripli, preludy aj džinovia, násilníci, iluzionisti, smútiace matky aj osirelí synovia. Hassan Blásim skrz to reálne i skrz to magické, fiktívne či prosto vymyslené, približuje zložité príbehy ešte zložitejších postáv. Zručne pomedzi ne kľučkuje, miestami nesmelo zakopáva, inokedy oduševnene skacká a kde-tu sa zvedavo pristaví, no či už na svet nahliada ako na čosi bizarné, absurdné, tragické či jednoducho nechutne krvavé, robí tak spôsobom, ktorému nemožno vzdorovať.
Vťahuje jedinečným štýlom, dusí odkazom, ubíja realitou. Výborné, no temné čítanie.
May 25, 2025
Ni punto de comparación con «El loco de la plaza Libertad», su segunda colección de relatos, también publicada en castellano.
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