In some of these visions, the lack of resources leads to looting and riots. We read of the coming Arabic renaissance, and of the rejection of all religion. In these pages, there is no shortage of futuristic happenings both wondrous and unsettling: global warming, ethnic purges, domed cities, alien invaders, time-travel and tiger-droids (whatever those are).
Not surprisingly, the stories in this book are wildly diverse, encompassing straight-up science fiction (a rarity in the world of Arabic literature, as Blasim asserts in his introduction), allegory, fantasy and many shades in between. Blasim asked Iraqi fiction writers for stories that answered the question: what might Iraq look like in the year 2103, a hundred years after the US-led invasion and its catastrophic consequences? Iraq+100: Stories from Another Iraq was conceived as a way to look past the country’s troubled present and recent history by focusing instead on the future.
Blasim’s newest project is another collection of stories, but here he operates as editor as well as contributor. Hassan Blasim is an Iraqi writer whose collections of short stories, The Madman of Freedom Square and The Iraqi Christ, have been translated into English, where they met with wide acclaim.
A statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by Iraqi civilians and US soldiers on Ap| AP
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