The last of the villagers

This is the fifth short story collection by Iraqi writer Mohsen Al-Ramli, whose storytelling experience has received praise and many critical and academic studies in more than one language, and has been published in several editions in different countries, the latest in one volume by Dar Al-Mada titled "The Gift of the Night Owls," about which writer Ali Badr said: "These stories are one of the greatest productions of Iraqi narrative, in language, style, and imagination. For a moment, I doubted that an Iraqi could create a mature continuation of what Iraqi literature has produced in short stories, since Fuad Takarli and passing through Mohamed Khudair, whom critics considered the pinnacle of this genre or type. But the real surprise with Mohsen Al-Ramli is his ability to create worlds from the farthest edge of Iraqi literature, which was mostly civil. Al-Ramli leads us to a nearby countryside we do not know, with remarkable genius, writing about its distant, remote saliva, with a true mixture, as if a blend between Itamatoff and Sholokhov, but with a fully local style and a terminology set belonging to the northern Arab part of Iraq, in a village confined between the river and Mount Makhol. A poor rural area economically but rich in its legends and stories. Mohsen Al-Ramli draws with complete spontaneity the political and social transformations of this countryside and cleverly, imperceptibly, traces the impact of authority that forms in the distance, on the farthest map of this seemingly exiled village, but closer to us than our pulse. Reading Mohsen Al-Ramli is a true pleasure, genuine knowledge, and benefit from this literature that gradually begins to replace the human sciences."