Billiken Bookmarks: Summer Reading Picks From SLU Authors

The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli (London: MacLehose Press, 2013)

The President’s Gardens follows the lives of three friends – Ibrahim, Abdullah and Tariq – from the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War to the aftermath of the American invasion.  Abdullah loses twenty years to Iranian captivity before returning to learn the terrible truth of his birth. Tariq, the son of the local Sheik, avoids the army, and becomes a man of power and influence, able to help his friends but always careful to keep his own interests closest to his heart. Ibrahim loses a foot in the first Gulf War and his wife to cancer before taking on a menial job in the gardens of one of the president's many palaces – a job whose responsibilities will escalate beyond his wildest imaginings.

The President’s Gardens shines a light on people largely ignored by the Western media: ordinary Iraqi people. It dramatizes the way in which they suffered under "the President’s” regime, and in the wars with Iran and with America and the West. It is an epic, sweeping novel that has much to say about male friendship, religion, fathers and daughters and what it means to live under a despotic regime. Al-Ramli’s multi-generational portrayal of village life in Iraq has led to companions with Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Muhsin is a born storyteller, and he has already lived nine lives, so he has many stories to tell. His writing shows a deep love and understanding for his fellow man, especially those who are humble and selfless. The President’s Gardens reveals shocking truths about Iraq, but the horror is leavened with humor, poetic insight and an appreciation of fellowship and the simple pleasures of life.

Muhsin wrote the book while teaching at SLU and it answers many questions that were posed to him by his students.

Muhsin Al-Ramli is a writer, poet, translator and academic who was born in northern Iraq. He has lived in Madrid, Spain since 1995 and has also written the award-winning play In Search of a Living Heart, which played at theater festivals in Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Al-Ramli worked as a journalist and newspaper editor in Jordan and Iraq and co-founded the Spain-based Arabic literary magazine Alwah. His novel, The Wolf of Love and Books was a finalist for 2016's Jeque Zayed Book Award.  A member of the SLU-Madrid faculty, Al-Ramli teaches courses on 20th Century Arabic Literature, Arabic language and Islamic culture, translation and Spanish narrative works.