Vicarity Project: Iraq

Iraq

Novel:

Cell Block Five by Fadhil al-Azzawi (available on Kindle)

Summary: This is an Iraqi prison novel, in which the main character, Aziz, is unjustly accused of being a political dissident. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was unjustly arrested and imprisoned. The novel follows his psychological journey from his early days of certainty that the mistake will be rectified, to his anger about such an ineffective system, to his hopeless acceptance of his fate.

Response: This novel is well written, and Aziz is likeable. He doesn’t have many distinguishing personality traits, because I think the author is trying more to convey the psychological experience of unjust imprisonment than trying to write a realistic character. After the first few months in prison, Aziz begins to have vivid fantasies about the sister of one of his fellow inmates, and he begins to have “prophetic” dreams, so the book takes a kind of psychedelic turn. It begins to follow a more descriptive rather than narrative pattern, and it kind of lost me, to be honest. I re-gained interest towards the end when Aziz begins to accept his fate and the writing returned to a more linear style. I looked up the author on Wikipedia, and it says that he has written seven volumes of poetry, which would explain the more poetic writing style. 

Interestingly, there is very little in the novel that would identify the setting as Iraq. There are one or two references to Baghdad, but by and large, it could take place in any prison anywhere. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed this book, but it’s worth reading.

Food:

Tabbouleh, Hummus and Pita, Date Balls

I pretty much just copied Sasha Martin on this one, but I used hummus instead of the red pepper sauce. I got lazy and used store-bought hummus instead of making my own, although I highly recommend the America’s Test Kitchen hummus recipe, which is crazy good.

The finished product: 

My husband’s comment on this was, “Why don’t we just get the appetizers every time?!?” This really was enough food for two people for dinner, and it’s what you would normally order as appetizers in the U.S. It was all great!

Cocktail:

The Jallab

I did not invent this one. I found it here: https://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/a-jallab-cocktail-inspired-by-lebanon-at-open-sesame-4440627

The cocktail inventor was inspired by Lebanon, but Jallab is also popular in Iraq, so I appropriated it.

It’s delicious!

!في صحتك