Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

, the late

President of Iraq The president of Iraq is the head of state of Iraq and "safeguards the commitment to the Constitution and the preservation of Iraq's independence, sovereignty, unity, the security of its territories in accordance with the provisions of the Con ...

, wrote four novels and a number of poems. The first two books (''Zabibah and the King'' and ''The Fortified Castle'') were "Written by He Who Wrote It", a traditional way in Arabic writing to preserve anonymity.

''Zabibah and the King''

'' Zabibah and the King'' ( ar, زبيبة والملك '), also transliterated ''Zabiba and the King'', written in 2000, is a novel that the CIA believes was written by Saddam Hussein, probably with the help of some ghostwriters. The plot is a love story about a powerful ruler of

medieval Iraq Iraq is a country in Western Asia that largely corresponds with the territory of ancient Mesopotamia. The history of Mesopotamia extends from the Lower Paleolithic period until the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, after wh ...

and a beautiful commoner girl named Zabibah. Zabibah's husband is a cruel and unloving man who rapes her. The book is set in 7th- or 8th-century

Tikrit Tikrit ( ar, تِكْرِيت ''Tikrīt'' , Syriac: ܬܲܓܪܝܼܬܼ ''Tagrīṯ'') is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. , it h ...

, Hussein's home town. The book is intended to be seen as an allegory, with Zabibah representing the people of Iraq, her husband representing the United States, and the ruler representing Saddam Hussein himself. The book was believed to be the subject of the 2012 movie '' The Dictator''. However, this turned out not to be true.

''The Fortified Castle''

''The Fortified Castle'' ( ar, القلعة الحصينة ') is a 713-page novel published in 2001. It is another

allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...

work. It concerns the delayed wedding of the Iraqi hero, who fought in the war against Iran, to a Kurdish girl. There are three characters: the two brothers Sabah and Mahmud, from a rural area on the west bank of the

Tigris River The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the P ...

who come from a farming family, and a young woman, Shatrin, from Suleimaniya. They all go to the same university in Baghdad. Sabah is a war hero from the days of the Battle of New Qadisiyya (

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations S ...

), during which he was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner of war in Iran, from which he finally manages to escape with a few friends. The power of the "fortified castle" (a reference to Iraq) lies in its unity; despite proposals to divide the property, the hero's mother refuses. She also states that it cannot be purchased with money: "Only those who give it their blood and defend it are its rightful owners."

''Men and the City''

''Men and the City'' ( ar, رجال والمدينة ') concerns the rise of the Ba'ath Party in Tikrit.

''Begone, Demons''

''Begone, Demons'', also translated as ''Get Out, You Damned'' or ''Get Out of Here, Curse You!'' ( ar, اخرج منها يا ملعون '), is Saddam Hussein's fourth and last novel, allegedly finished the day before U.S. forces invaded. The novel describes, through biblical metaphor, a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

-Christian conspiracy against

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

s and

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. An Arab army eventually thwarts the conspiracy by invading their enemy's land and destroying two massive towers, as a reference to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

. The characters include the narrator,

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

, named for the patriarch in

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish, Christian and Muslim traditions, and his grandchildren, three cousins named Ezekiel, Youssef and Mahmoud, who represent Jews, Christians and Muslims respectively. The book was published in Tokyo by a Japanese publisher, Tokuma Shoten Publishing, in 2006 under the title ''Devil's Dance''. A total of eight thousand copies were printed of the 256-page novel. It was translated into Turkish by Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. Raghad Hussein had tried to publish the novel in Jordan, and planned to print 100 thousand copies, until the government prevented the publication. In 2007 the novel was translated into

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and published in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

by the Amfora Publishing House. 5,000 copies of 206 pages were printed. The chief editor of the publishing house Vadim Nazarov said that the novel's publication was "an ideological initiative" and "a response to pain". He explained that "when Serbian houses were being bombed, we published Serbian novels. Now we publish Saddam Hussein's book. When he was the leader of Iraq, there was more discipline in this country". It has not been translated or sold in any other languages.

References

Sources

Pipes, Daniel. "Saddam the Novelist."BBC: 'Saddam novel' on sale in TokyoMiddle East Media Research Institute: Special Dispatch Series No. 509

External links

Amazon:Zabiba and the King
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saddam Hussein's Novels Saddam Hussein Iraqi novels Lists of novels