“Ijam is an amazing work because it conjures up a world of horror that we know and have read about before, but which often seems distant and unreal. It takes tremendous talent to make it specific, personal, and Iraqi. . . . The nightmare becomes familiar and real.” - Etel Adnan “An Iraqi novel par excellence. . . Truly rich. . . It truly deserves to be read as a model that carries many of the specifications of narrative experimentation free of artificiality and contrition. A unique novel in its combination of documentary and poetry, irony and nightmare, and delicate artistic awareness and beautiful linguistic delirium.” - Abdo Wazen “In Ijam, irony is defined as an implicit resistance to the dictator’s discourse, and it is also a counter-memory to the narratives of power... The narrator rises above power through ijam writing, and this happens at the very heart of it, in one of its dark prisons.” - Hamza Aliwi