Nabeedh

The novel "The Sinner" by the Iraqi novelist Inaam Kachachi has been released in a new edition by Takween Publications as part of a collection of distinguished Arabic novels that included the rest of Kachachi's literary works. The novel was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction/Booker in 2018.

About "The Sinner"
On a cloudy morning in early 1949, from Radio Karachi broadcasting in Arabic, Taji Abdul Majeed announced the execution of the Iraqi communist Yusuf Salman, known as Fahd.

Her voice was deep, neutral, and strange to her ears. She stripped her throat of its natural resonance and read the news without emotion, in a coarse tone like a hangman's rope. Her tears welled up after the microphone was turned off. She wiped them away before leaving the studio. Emotion was a suspicion, and she had enough suspicions already. She went to the sink and soaped her hands several times, as if washing away unseen blood.

Three characters, two women and one man, each with their own voice and story, meet in a novel where love intertwines with music, and poetry with espionage. Taj al-Mulook Abdul Majeed, the liberal journalist who owned Al-Rihab magazine, supported by Nuri al-Said in 1940s Baghdad.

Mansour al-Badi, her Palestinian colleague at Radio Karachi, who immigrated to Venezuela and became an advisor to its president, Hugo Chavez. And Widian al-Mallah, a violinist in the Iraqi Symphony Orchestra, whose ears are burdened by deafness, a punishment for rebelling against the whims of "the maestro."

Story after story, "The Sinner" weaves the threads of reality with the spindle of imagination, as it diverts human destinies from their natural paths, spanning eighty years of the history of a tormenting and tormented country.

Quotes from "The Sinner"
Her life is a series of consecutive novels. She gasps after their events, leaving no time for writing.
What is she afraid of? There is nothing out of the ordinary in her life. It is all out of the ordinary.