Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

, the fifth

President of Iraq The President of the Republic of Iraq is the head of state of Iraq. Since the mid-2000s, the presidency is primarily a symbolic office, as the position does not possess significant power within the country according to the Constitution of Iraq, ...

, 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 Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Anonymity may be created unintentionally through the loss of identifying information due to the passage of time or a destructive event, or intentionally if a person cho ...

''Zabibah and the King''

'' Zabibah and the King'' ( '), also transliterated ''Zabiba and the King'', written in 2000, is a novel that the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

believes was written by Saddam Hussein. The plot is a love story about a powerful ruler of medieval Iraq 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 ( ) 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. In 2012, it had a population of approximately 160,000. Originally created as a f ...

, Hussein's home town. The book is intended to be seen as an

allegory As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...

, 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'' ( ') 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 meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughou ...

work. It concerns the delayed wedding of the Iraqi hero, who fought in the war against Iran, to a

Kurd Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

ish 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 ( ; see below) is the eastern 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, before merging ...

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, also known as the First Gulf War, was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, unti ...

), 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'' ( ') concerns the rise of the

Ba'ath Party The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party ( ' ), also known simply as Bath Party (), was a political party founded in Syria by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and associates of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, which is an ideology ...

in Tikrit.

''Begone, Demons''

''Begone, Demons'', also translated as ''Get Out, You Damned'' or ''Get Out of Here, Curse You!'' ( '), 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 is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

-Christian conspiracy against

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

s and

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

. 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, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. The characters include the narrator,

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

, named for the patriarch in

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish, Christian and

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

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) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and published in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

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 *