Book description
I> relates the investigation of the life of a celebrated Jewish
Iraqi musician who was expelled to Israel in the 1950s. Having returned
to Iraq, via Iran, the musician is thrown out as an Israeli spy.
Returning for the third time under a forged passport, he is murdered in
mysterious circumstances. Arriving in Baghdad's Green Zone during the
US-led occupation, a journalist writing a story about the musician's
life discovers an underworld of fake identities, mafias and militias.
Even among the journalists, there is a secret world of identity games,
fake names and ulterior motives. This is a novel written as
investigative journalism, including apparently authentic sources,
meticulously researched in Baghdad, Teheran, Istanbul and Damascus.
Conceived as a murder mystery, a political reportage, a personal odyssey
of a man who refuses to succumb to the need to define himself and his
Baghdad in terms of one identity. First published in Arabic in 2008,
The Tobacco Keeper<
I> relates the investigation of the life of a
celebrated Jewish Iraqi musician who was expelled to Israel in the
1950s. Having returned to Iraq, via Iran, the musician is thrown out
as an Israeli spy. Returning for the third time under a forged
passport, he is murdered in mysterious circumstances. Arriving in
Baghdad's Green Zone during the US-led occupation, a journalist
writing a story about the musician's life discovers an underworld of
fake identities, mafias and militias. Even among the journalists,
there is a secret world of identity games, fake names and ulterior
motives. This is a novel written as investigative journalism,
including apparently authentic sources, meticulously researched in
Baghdad, Teheran, Istanbul and Damascus. Conceived as a murder
mystery, a political reportage, a personal odyssey of a man who
refuses to succumb to the need to define himself and his Baghdad in
terms of one identity. First published in Arabic in 2008, The
Tobacco Keeper<
