Alone the pomegranate tree - Sinan Antoun

The Iraqi writer Sinan Antoun’s novel “Only the Pomegranate Tree” (The Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing) opens with a simple narrative that sometimes surprises you with its turns into dreamy, fantasy images, intermittent according to the steps of the cinematic scenario, on the scenes of death that devours the heart of occupied Baghdad, which remains before the eyes of Jawad, who He is a professional in washing the dead and shrouding them, after learning the profession’s principles, principles and secrets at the hands of his father. It is a profession that has been passed down in the family for a long time. This washing of the dead was taking place before the American occupation of Iraq on its usual messengers and nature. With the brunt of the fierce war, and the fighting between the people of the same country, groups and individuals, the pace of killing increased significantly, and death took the form of horrific forms of mutilation and abuse of corpses, stabbing, suffocation, burning, mutilation and dismemberment. And it came to Jawad that he was confused and confused about how to wash a severed head without a body, and a body that was cut off with an electric saw in a ritual washing that Islamic law assumes before burial.

Number of pages: 280