99 scattered beads

Author: Halim Yousif Translation: Joan Tater Number of pages: 244 pages Category: Short stories and novels Summary: The events of the novel begin with a murder in Germany, then return to torn Kurdistan. Then it moves between them, trying to trace the wide dreams of "Azad" represented in simply having a homeland to contain him. Torn between three languages; his original Kurdish language, naturally Arabic, and German which he learned.. and his work as a translator for refugees, moving between languages as if his destiny is not to settle on one language to express what is inside him. Dispersal and migration and escape and deportation.. life and death and bright dreams and suppressed dreams.. love and abandonment and disappointment and victory and defeat. Hope and pain and fragmentation.. Kurds, Arabs, and Germans.. "Halim Yousif" addresses all this in an amazing blend and harmony, skillfully moving between the internal/psychological and external/realistic, drawing a long journey about the fragmentation of homelands, and the loss of humans— in its abstract sense— in their relentless attempts just to live, and to preserve what remains of distant memories of streets, houses, and squares of his distant homeland. The novel is highly delicate and private.. full of pain and amazement.. and dreams of homelands that we continue to carry inside us no matter how far we travel and distance ourselves..