Coquitlam Public Library

Out of Mesopotamia, Salar Abdoh

eng

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fiction

Out of Mesopotamia

electronic resource

dictionaries

Salar Abdoh

Informed by firsthand experience on the battlefronts of Iraq and Syria, Abdoh captures the horror, confusion, and absurdity of combat from a seldom-glimpsed perspective that expands our understanding of the war novel. "A masterful, stylish novel told from the perspective of a disaffected Iranian writer who is drawn to the militias fighting in Syria and Iraq. Abdoh beautifully illustrates the paradoxes of war in the field and on the home front, alternating moments of brutality and comradeship and showing war's pointless heroisms, its random accidents, its absurdities, and its ongoing human costs. This is at once a probing look at the disaster in Syria and Iraq, and an affectionate yet gimlet-eyed view of masculinity, art, and cultural politics." --The Millions, One of the Most-Anticipated Books of 2020 "A superb pressure cooker of a novel...Abdoh brilliantly fuses the confusions of combat and modern life to produce an unforgettable novel. This is one of the best works of literature on the war against ISIS to date." --Publishers Weekly, STARRED review "{A} searing, poetic, and morally authentic account of contemporary conflict. Abdoh eloquently depicts the absurdity of war, employing darkly comic interludes while also showing the devastating brutality...A devastatingly profound catch-22 of modern conflict." --Booklist "Out of Mesopotamia...draws on Abdoh's experience reporting on the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in this tale of an Iranian television writer who crosses the border to get a first-hand look at the front lines." --Publishers Weekly, Included in Fall 2020 Adult Announcements: Literary Fiction Saleh, the narrator of Out of Mesopotamia, is a middle-aged Iranian journalist who moonlights as a writer for one of Iran's most popular TV shows but cannot keep himself away from the front lines in neighboring Iraq and Syria. There, the fight against the Islamic State is a proxy war, an existential battle, a declaration of faith, and, for some, a passing weekend affair. After weeks spent dodging RPGs, witnessing acts of savagery and stupidity, Saleh returns to civilian life in Tehran but finds it to be an unbearably dislocating experience. Pursued by his official handler from state security, opportunistic colleagues, and the woman who broke his heart, Saleh has reason to again flee from everyday life. Surrounded by men whose willingness to achieve martyrdom both fascinates and appalls him, Saleh struggles to make sense of himself and the turmoil in his midst. An unprecedented glimpse into "endless war" from a Middle Eastern perspective, Out of Mesopotamia follows in the tradition of the Western canon of martial writers--from Hemingway and Orwell to Tim O'Brien and Philip Caputo--but then subverts and expands upon the genre before completely blowing it apart. Drawing from his firsthand experience of being embedded with Shia militias on the ground in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh gives agency to the voiceless while offering a meditation on war that is moving, humane, darkly funny, and resonantly true

adult