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IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD:
TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC
STRESS DISORDERS IN ALI BADER’S
THE TOBACCO KEEPER
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraa
ABSTRACT
In e Tobacco Keeper, Ali Bader delves into the harrowing experiences of Iraqi Jews during
the Farhud, a violent pogrom that took place in Baghdad in 1941. e story not only chronicles
the immediate physical and emotional toll of the violence but also examines the long-lasting
psychological eects that such an experience has on the Jewish community in Iraq. e aim
of this article is to examine the literary representation of psychic trauma which is provoked by
exposure to a traumatic event in Ali Bader’s e Tobacco Keeper and explore the post-traumatic
stress disorders that the traumatized character suers. e article, through close reading of the
novel, attempts to trace and elucidate the myriad emotional, behavioural and psychological
predicaments that the protagonist exhibits and experiences aer being exposed to the Farhud.
e study deploys trauma theory and post-traumatic stress disorders theory to examine the
protagonist’s altered perception of reality and the self and the mechanisms he employs to cope
with the traumatic event and the extent to which he is able to overcome the impacts of those
traumatic experiences.
Keywords: Farhud, Iraq, Jews, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder
JEL Classication: Y90
Socioekonomické a humanitní studie 2/2024 Vol.20
26
INTRODUCTION
e Farhud was a Nazi-inspired pogrom, a series of attacks and pillages, carried
against Iraqi Jews on June 1–2, 1941. e term Farhud in colloquial Iraqi means
“looting or robbing; it came to designate specically the killing, wounding, and
robbing of Jews in Baghdad on the rst two days of June 1941” (Bashkin, 2012,
p. 101). Sometimes the Farhud is translated as “violent dispossession” and at
other times as “mass rape and killing” (Black, 2010, p. 4). It was a “violent dispo-
ssession of the Jews of Baghdad” (Black, 2010, p. xiii) and a “senseless orgy of vio-
lence,” during which 139 Jews were killed and some 2,500 injured. Besides brute
killing, Jews’ shops, property and houses were looted; women were raped, and
many others were kidnapped (Moreh, 2008, p. 6; Black, 2010, p. xiii). According
to Sir Martin Gilbert (2010), the Farhud “is a moment of tragedy…a moment
of savage violence that foreshadowed the end of a vibrant 2,600-year-old Jewish
community” in Iraq (p. xi). It was the rst pogrom in an Arab state during which
Iraqi Jews were attacked by their fellow Iraqi citizens.
e roots of this pogrom go back to the violent rule of the British. Aer 1918,
Britain ruled Iraq. However, their rule was “oen far from benign” (Gilbert, 2010,
p. xi). ousands of Iraqis were killed by the British bombs. In 1920 Sunday Times
published a letter from T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) calling the British
administration “more bloody and inecient than the public knows. It is a disgra-
ce to our imperial record, and may soon be too inamed for an ordinary cure”
(Gilbert, 2010, p. xi). Furthermore, the British played a pivotal role in facilita-
ting the immigration of European Jews to Palestine. Palestine became a haven
for Jewish communities under British protection, oering a refuge where they
could rebuild their lives and lay the groundwork for the eventual establishment
of a Jewish state. e national feeling was solidied by the arrival of Palestini-
an leaders, particularly Haj Amin al-Husseini, who arrived in Baghdad in 1936,
along with a large group of Palestinian exiles (teachers, lawyers and intellectuals).
ese Palestinian exiles were given hospitality and support in Iraq and worked
with Pan-Arab Iraqis and “projected their animosity toward Zionism onto Iraqi
Jews, and supported Nazi Germany” (Bashkin, 2012, p. 104). Al-Husseini and his
companions “spread anti-British as well as anti-Jewish animus” (Gilbert, 2010,
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
27
p. xii). ey had a tremendous inuence on the Iraqi regime and called for the
government and the people of Iraq to expel the Iraqi Jews (Moreh, 2008, p. 6). e
Iraqi nationalists, along with Germany’s consul in Baghdad, Dr. Fritz Grobba,
and Palestinian leaders established a pro-Nazi government headed by al-Gilani
in April 1941 (Moreh, 2008, p. 6). Al-Gilani instigated war against the British
who, to ensure the ow of oil to the allies, won the battle at the end of May 1941,
and this led to the pogrom against the Iraqi Jews known as the Farhud. Further,
the hostile feelings against Jews grew with the spread of Nazi ideas through Ger-
man radio in Arabic and the formation of Al-Fatwa. All these factors led to the
outbreak of violence against Iraqi Jews in 1941 on the rst day of the feast of the
revelation of the Torah.
During the Farhud, the anti-Zionist sentiment of the Iraqis manifested itself
as directed against the Iraqi Jews. Iraqis took to the streets searching for Jews,
attacking them and burning them alive. e city Jewish population fell prey to
barbarism. Many police took part in the robbery. Bellies were split open and foe-
tuses were removed. Women, sometimes female children, were raped, and some
had their breasts cut o. e savagery of 1941 rioters went on unimpeded for two
days. Describing the event, Edwin Black (2010) writes:
Infants were viciously bashed to death against the pavement and then thrown
lifeless into the Tigris. Jewish women—hundreds of them—were mercilessly
and openly raped in front of their husbands, in front of their parents, in front
of their children, and in front of the wild Muslim mobs. If the woman was
pregnant, sometimes she was rst raped, and then sliced open to destroy the
unborn baby; only then was she killed. Men who defended their women and
children were killed and their homes plundered. Commonly, aer murdering
the defenseless Jewish men and women with hatchets, axes, and swords, the
chanting throngs hacked their inanimate bodies to pieces, thus further deling
the indels and—temporarily—sating the mob’s blood lust. (p. 3)
It was a moment of horror in which “Cheers and jeers from the rioting Arabs
crowds competed with the cries of horror and anguish as family aer family were
pulled from their vehicles or chased down the street” (Black, 2010, p. 3). For two
days, slaughter and violation of Jews continued and the city of Baghdad turned
into a burning madhouse. e horrors of this event would forever be seared upon
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
28
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
the consciousness of Iraqi Jews. e Farhud incident changed the life of Iraqi
Jews forever. It was a real turning point in the history of Iraqi Jews in particular
and Iraq itself in general. It was one of the rst civil riots against its own citizens.
Many historians arm that all “the subsequent civil strife in Baghdad may be
traced back to what happened on that fateful day in 1941” (Bader, 2011, p. 90).
Bader’s e Tobacco Keeper re-narrates the Farhud pogrom highlighting its trau-
matic impact on Iraqi Jews as represented by Yousef.
e aim of the present article is to analyze the literary depiction of psychic
trauma which is provoked by the exposure of the novel’s protagonist to the Far-
hud in Bader’s e Tobacco Keeper and to explore the post-traumatic stress disor-
ders that the traumatized protagonist endures. e article, through close reading
of the novel, seeks to trace and elucidate the complex emotional, psychological
and behavioural predicaments the protagonist undergoes following the Farhud
experience. Employing trauma theory and post-traumatic stress disorder theory,
the article examines the protagonist’s altered perception of reality and self, the
coping mechanisms he adopts to deal with the trauma, and the extent to which
he succeeds in overcoming its eects. e article, therefore, examines trauma
and post-traumatic stress disorders through the lens of literature, focusing on
how literary texts can serve as a medium to portray, understand, and explore
the complexities of traumatic experiences. is approach highlights the ability
of literature to reect, contextualize and humanize the experiences of those who
have endured trauma, oering readers a deeper understanding of the subjective
and multifaceted nature of such experiences.
Reading e Tobacco Keeper through the lens of psychoanalysis and trauma
theory opens up nuanced perspectives and avenues of inquiry that dier enti-
rely from other approaches such as those focused primarily on identity or limi-
nality. For example, Alwuraa (2023) investigates how “politics problematizes
and destabilizes notions of identity construction, sense of belonging and life
in the third space” as depicted in the novel (p. 44). While issues of identity are
undoubtedly central to the novel and have been the focus of signicant scholarly
attention, the present study approaches shi the emphasis toward understanding
the psychological dimensions of the protagonist’s experiences, particularly the
impact of trauma on his psyche and behaviour.
29
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
CONCEPTUALIZING TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
DISORDERS (PTSDS)
e term “‘trauma” is derived from the Greek meaning “wound” or “injury”. at
is, the original meaning of the word is “an injury inicted on a body” (Caruth,
1996, p. 3). Later on, however, the term was used in psychiatry with a new mea-
ning: “a wound inicted […] upon the mind” (Caruth, 1996, p. 3). e interest
in psychological trauma started aer WWI when soldiers who participated in
the war showed traumatic symptoms aer their return. Since then, many scho-
lars have made attempts to dene the term. Caruth (1995) denes trauma as “a
response, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or events, which takes
the form of repeated, intrusive hallucinations, dreams, thoughts or behaviors
stemming from the event, along with numbing that may have begun during or
aer the experience, and possibly also increased arousal to (and avoidance of) sti-
muli recalling the event” (p. 4). Similarly, Waites (1993) denes it as “an injury to
mind or body that requires structural repair” (p. 22). Waites asserts that “a main
eect of trauma is disorganization, a physical and/or mental disorganization that
may be circumscribed or widespread,” and this disorganization causes “fragmen-
tation of self, shattering of social relationships, erosion of social supports” (p. 92).
Kalí Tal (1996) conceptualizes trauma as “a life-threatening event that displaces
[one’s] preconceived notions about the world” (p. 15). Tal emphasizes that the
victim must experience the event rst-hand. For Judith Herman (1997) trauma is
any “threat to life or bodily integrity, or a close personal encounter with violen-
ce and death” (p. 33). All these denitions point to one fact: trauma is an event
that involves a grievous stressor that evokes signicant symptoms of distress in
the individual. Trauma, hence, can refer to a state in which an individual suers
psychological harm following an experience which is perceived as predominantly
grievous. e determining factor which makes such an experience traumatic is
the individual’s ability to emotionally deal with it. It is subjective and diers from
one person to another, depending on various factors.
e early discussions of trauma are associated with Freud, who asserts that trau-
ma is the main cause of hysteria amongst women because women were sexually
abused in childhood. Freud argues that trauma is the result of a sudden moment
of “shock” or “fright” which the psyche is unprepared to deal with or process. He
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Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
further elaborates that PTSD stays dormant for some time before surfacing when
the women reach adulthood. He calls this delay “belatedness” and what strikes
him is the delayed persistent recurrence or return of the event:
It may happen that someone gets away from, apparently unharmed, the spot
where he has suered a shocking accident, for instance a train collision. In the
course of the following weeks, however, he develops a series of grave psychical
and motor symptoms, which one can ascribe only to his shock or whatever else
happened at the time of the accident. He has developed a ‘traumatic neuro-
sis.’…e time that elapsed between the accident and the rst appearance of the
symptoms is called the ‘incubation period,’ a transparent allusion to the patho-
logy of infectious disease… It is the feature one might term latency. (Freud,
1939, pp. 109–10)
According to Freud, there is a period of “latency” during which no eects of the
traumatic event are apparent. Many techniques such as dream interpretation and
free association were used by Freud to explore the psychodynamics of “traumatic
neurosis” and he found that nightmares or what he called anxiety dreams were
common traumatic symptoms.
Aer WWI, soldiers who participated in the war showed traumatic symptoms
aer their return and, therefore, an unprecedented interest in psychological trau-
ma started. Physicians came to realize that “their wounds were psychological
rather than organic in nature” and the soldiers’ condition was labelled as “shell
shock” (Leys, 2000, p. 83). e interest continued throughout the twentieth cen-
tury, particularly aer WWII and Vietnam War. It was aer the Vietnam War
that those pathologies which have been identied for centuries as “soldier’s heart,
battle fatigue, shell shock, combat neurosis, combat exhaustion, and even pseudo
combat fatigue” came to be classied as characteristic symptoms of PTSD (Post-
-Traumatic Stress Disorder) (Ray, 2012, p. 454). It was in 1980 that the phenome-
non was nally acknowledged ocially by the American Psychiatric Association
and acquired a new name – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Since then, the term trauma has been used to refer to any experience of emo-
tional distress. So, there has been a shi in its meaning from the physical to the
psychological and nowadays the term is used “to refer to the psychological distre-
ss caused by a painful or stressful event that one internalizes but forgets or blocks
31
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
in conscious life, only to revisit compulsively in nightmares or ‘ashbacks’ and to
suer additional symptoms, such as paralysis, amnesia, or other psychosomatic
illness” (Starks-Estes, 2014, p. 18).
Closely related to trauma is post-traumatic stress disorder which can be de-
ned as “persistent problematic biological and psychological adaptations following
exposure to a traumatic stressor, including intrusive memories, avoidance and
emotional numbing and hyperarousal and hypervigilance” (Ford, 2009, p. 6).
PTSD is “the psychiatric syndrome that arises out of the experience of trauma”
(Bubenechik, 2014, 29). It is an individual’s response to “an overwhelming expe-
rience of sudden or catastrophic events” (Caruth, 1996, p. 57) and includes die-
rent mental disorders which result from experiencing a traumatic event including
“reexperiencing symptoms, nightmares, and ashbacks; avoidance symptoms, the
marks of psychic numbing; and the symptoms of heightened physiological arou-
sal: hypervigilance, disturbed sleep, a distracted mind” (Brown, 1995, p. 100). In
other words, PTSD is a severe mental disorder that develops aer one’s exposure
to an exceptionally horrifying or threatening event. For many psychiatrists and
psychologists, PTSD is the major consequence of a traumatic event; it is said to
be the “only psychiatric disorder clearly induced by the exterior environment”
(Pagel, 2021, p. 5). It aects individuals for years aer their traumatic experience.
PTSD symptoms are usually grouped into four categories: avoidance, intrusive
memories, negative changes in thinking, and changes in emotional and physical
reactions. Avoidance symptoms include an individual’s attempt to avoid talking
or thinking about the traumatic event and avoiding people, places and activities
that remind one of the traumatic event. Intrusive memories include recurrent,
distressing memories of the traumatic event, ashbacks – reliving the traumatic
event again – and upsetting nightmares or dreams. e negative changes in mood
and thinking include helplessness and loss of hope or desperation, detaching one-
self from family and friends, lack of interest in life and social activities. Symptoms
of the changes in emotional reactions include being easily frightened or startled,
always feeling in danger, and troubles in sleeping and concentrating. Post-trau-
matic stress disorders occur when a person experiences, witnesses or is confron-
ted with an event that involves an actual threat or serious injury to oneself. Such
a person, in spite of a determination to evade and avoid anything that may bring
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Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
the event to mind again, usually re-experiences or re-lives the traumatic event in
their daily thoughts.
TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDERS
IN THE TOBACCO KEEPER
e present article focuses on Ali Bader’s e Tobacco Keeper, a historical novel
which re-narrates the horric event of the Farhud and its ramications from the
perspective of Yousef, an Iraqi Jew, who lived through it. e novel was origina-
lly written in Arabic and published in 2008 and was translated into English by
Amira Nowaira in 2011. e Tobacco Keeper, a groundbreaking work in the eld
of Arab ction on Arab Jews, is the rst work of ction in Iraq to deal with Iraqi
Jews. It is the story of violence, exclusion, conscation, deportation and physical
extermination. In this novel, the author does not only underline the cruelty, but
also shows the terror of the Farhud event by subtle narratives and compositional
manoeuvres. In other words, Bader does not shock the readers by presenting the
cruelty but rather reveals the pervasive post-traumatic stress disorders that the
protagonist experiences later in his life.
e Tobacco Keeper revolves around Yousef, a traumatized victim, who aer the
traumatic experience of the Farhud, starts showing PTSDs. e novel unfolds the
traumatized life of Yousef, who, as a child, witnesses the horrifying violence of
the Farhud and the awful death of his aunt. When he was a child, the burning of
his aunt alive instilled fear and terror inside him. is traumatic event has been
powerful enough to break through the shielding barriers of his consciousness.
roughout his life, he remembers her death and re-lives this horrible moment of
crisis repetitively in his memory. e novel is narrated from a third person omni-
present point of view, which enables the reader to penetrate into the traumatized
consciousness of the protagonist and discover his distinct response to violence
that ensued during the Farhud and his aunt’s dreadful death, aer which, You-
sef nds himself trapped in a horrendous world fraught with psychic struggles
and tensions. Since the traumatic event of the Farhud, Yousef struggles with his
surroundings in order to survive both emotionally and physically. In this regard,
it can be claimed that the novel attempts to articulate the traumatized world of
Iraqi Jews represented by the protagonist and explores in depth the impact of
33
the Farhud on Iraqi Jews emotionally, psychologically, physically and socially. In
other words, the novel, told in the form of a meta-narrative, reects the traumatic
experiences as well as the post-traumatic life and the symptoms resulting from
those traumatic experiences.
Yousef Sami Saleh’s story begins with his childhood. He was born in 1926 in a
middle-class Jewish-Iraqi Qujman family which lived on Al-Rashid Street in the
Al-Torah quarter, one of Baghdad’s oldest quarters, which had been a home to
many Jewish families. His father, Sami Saleh worked at Juri pharmacy in Al-Ka-
rradah and his mother was Huri bint Rahamin Dalal. His mother’s father worked
in his early years at the Spice Market but later moved to work at the Grocers’
Market and was fairly wealthy. Aer World War I, he fell on hard times. His other
grandfather, Saleh, had a shop in which he sold sesame paste. He also worked in
pruning palm trees at the Mamou date grove and in the interwar years, he wor-
ked in brokering the date trade. Yousef’s family moved out of the self-contained
ghetto in Al-Torah neighbourhood to Hassan Pasha district. e family’s move
from the small ghetto to the wide world outside is a real turning point in Yousef ’s
life. He breaks “through its thick skin and reached for the sun” (Bader, 2011, p.
87) and starts experiencing the wider world, leaving the anxieties of the closed
ghetto behind him. Life in the new neighbourhood seems ordinary and Yousef
is able to take new roots and begins to feel that he is part of the new neighbour-
hood. He exchanges visits with his Muslim friends.
ough the Jews lived in their own neighbourhoods and quarters, which helped
them to form a homogeneous group and maintain their Jewish identity and cul-
ture, Bader’s narration of the family’s life before 1941 shows confessional coexi-
stence, communal harmony and religious tolerance that dominated Iraq at that
time. e shi of Yousef ’s family to Hassan Pasha district demonstrates how Iraqi
Jews have lived in close proximity to their Muslim neighbours, fostering a sense
of coexistence and cultural exchange. ough Yousef ’s family is not apparently
rich, they lead a happy and peaceful life and are engaged in various professions
such as trade, commerce, cras and farming. e family members are making
signicant contributions to the larger Iraqi cultural, economic and intellectual
landscapes and participating in the social fabric of their society and building rela-
tionships with their non-Jewish counterparts. ere are no restrictions imposed
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
34
on Jews; they are able to work in any trade they like, a fact which can be attributed
to the ancient historical bonds that have bound both communities together for
centuries. It also illustrates that Iraqi Jews have a rich history and diverse experi-
ences in Iraq which go back more than 3000 years.
e signicant event that changes Yousef ’s life forever is the Farhud Incident, in
which the Al-Torah Jewish neighbourhood is attacked by Muslim mobs. Yousef
was een years old. Jews are being beaten by the attackers and houses are being
looted. Yousef watches “the crowds running in the pale and hazy light and heard
the hoarse screams of Jews suocating and dying” (Bader, 2011, p. 92). As he wat-
ches, he sees “cart drivers and coachmen with whips indicating their willingness
to deliver the loot to the homes of the thieves” (Bader, 2011, p. 92). He sees men
brandishing knives and swords as they run aer Sabreya, a Jewish young woman.
She runs with her hair ying loose, pursued by a group of assailants who manage
to catch her by the hair before she could enter her house. ey punch her on the
ground and strip her of clothing. ey place their feet on her head and stamp
on it with full force. Two men remove her bracelets. en the angry mob break
down the doors and enter the houses of the terried, trembling Jews who huddle
together in the corners. e looters ee, carrying the furniture on their backs:
they go from one room to another taking everything they can lay their hands on:
bundles of clothes, carpets, rugs, quilts, cooking utensils, pots and even books.
During the Farhud a critical event which has a traumatic and devastating eect
on Yousef ’s life happens: the burning of his aunt, Massouda Dalal, alive. Yousef’s
aunt, who leaves her larger house in the Muslim neighbourhood believing that
the closed neighbourhood of Al-Torah will be much safer and may provide her
with safety and security, is the rst victim to lose her life in Al-Torah: “She had no
idea that this area would be now swarming with strange, angry faces or that their
houses would be looted by young men wearing caps and belts, whose bare and
muscular arms held palm branches, wooden canes and iron rods that they waved
in the faces of the terried Jews” (Bader, 2011, p. 92). e scene is described in
detail by the author. Yousef
was looking at the books curling in the re, shiing and hissing...e ames
rose higher and higher, consuming clothes and wooden objects…When the re
began to die out, he saw his aunt on the ground, on her bare knees. Her skin
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
35
was burning, peeling and blackening. Her facial muscles were contracted and
her bones cracked, while the ames consumed her hair. e crackling sounds
of his aunt’s body burning stied his screams, which emerged only as quave-
ring, incomprehensible sounds. e ames ickered around her body before
reducing it to charred dust that lay scattered on the ground…When he opened
his eyes, he felt as though it had all been a dream. His aunt lay a couple of
metres away from him, her skin charred and her skull fractured. Her body had
shrunk in size so much that it had become no heavier than her beautiful long
black hair. (Bader, 2011, p. 93)
Yousef observes the scene of death that is all around and, like most trauma vic-
tims, experiences the traumatic event rst hand. e horrors he goes through are
improbable; he witnesses the violence that has consumed the Jewish neighbour-
hood and his aunt being burnt alive to death. As a child, he does not know how
to handle and cope with these events and hence develops what is psychologica-
lly known as post-traumatic stress disorders which include horric nightmares,
feelings of fear, alienation, anxiety and persistent intrusive memories and loss of
temporality.
NIGHTMARES
One of the major traumatic symptoms or post-traumatic stress disorders is the
recurrence of nightmares in which the traumatic subject relives the event. ese
nightmares, according to Freud (1955), “have the characteristic of repeatedly
bringing the patient back into the situation of his accident, a situation from which
he wakes up in another fright” (p. 13). Freud is startled by the persistent retur-
ning of the traumatic dream because such persistent and inexplicable repetition
cannot be explained in terms of a wish or a wish fullment. According to Herman
(1997),
traumatic dreams are unlike ordinary dreams. In form, these dreams share
many of the unusual features of the traumatic memories that occur in waking
states. ey oen include fragments of the traumatic event in exact form, with
little or no imaginative elaboration. Identical dreams oen occur repeatedly.
ey are oen experienced with terrifying immediacy, as if occurring in the
present. (p. 39)
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
36
Hence, there is a compulsive repetition of the traumatic event in the form of
disturbing dreams and nightmares.
What happened to Yousef is perceived not as a nite incident that took place in
the past; the event continues to exist in the form of horric nightmares, aecting
him throughout his life. e death of his aunt in that cruel and inhuman way is a
traumatic and painful event of immeasurable repercussions and enormous scope
that will leave a permanent wound in his psyche. e catastrophe that he expe-
riences continues to resound powerfully in his memory and constantly surfaces
during his sleep in the form of horrible nightmares. Besides being a witness to the
gruesome and horric burning of his aunt, Yousef, as a young child, experiences
a real threat to his mental and physical wellbeing. e Farhud massacre, which
has taken place before his very eyes, “induced horric images in his dreams…He
began to see gures that seemed to come out of a Breughel or Bosch painting,
with huge noses, deformed bodies, frightening smiles and cloven feet” (Bader,
2011, p. 91). e trauma suered by Yousef is acute to the point that he, years
later, wakes up screaming at night. Readers are told that he
would oen wake up screaming. Two or three times a week he was seized by
nightmares. ey came randomly…He tossed and turned in bed, then gave
a loud scream. It was a sharp, high-pitched noise like the croaking of a man
dying a violent death or one committing suicide by jumping o a building. It
was the scream of a man hit by a speeding car. e whole house shook with the
sound of his screams. Nadia would wake up and sit by his side. Every muscle of
his body pulsed, and his heartbeat thumped like a drum. He trembled all over
and his voice rose high. His hands were cupped on his face. Aer the screa-
ming had suddenly subsided, he opened his eyes and looked at Nadia with his
eyes ashing. He then fell into a mysterious silence and lay back quietly on his
pillow. She held onto him to make sure that he was still breathing and that his
heart was pulsing with life. (Bader, 2011, p. 207)
Yousef is always haunted by horrifying nightmares. ough he is sleeping in his
bedroom many years later, the re of the Farhud and death continue to visit him
in bed, or rather, burst on his bed in the form of nightmares and horrible dreams.
In spite of the long time that has passed, Yousef is not able to forget the horric
scene; he is still mentally and nervously organized by the recurring event. At bed-
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
37
time, the past invades him and the moments that he believes are the calmest and
most tranquil turn out to be the worst. It is through these traumatic nightmares
that readers come to know the turbulent inner world of this character.
Such obtrusive terrors and recurrent nightmares are the manifestation of You-
sef’s “compulsion to repeat or ‘act out’ the traumatic event” (Onega, 2011, p. 84).
His nightmares speak “the story of a wound that cries out, that addresses us in
the attempt to tell us the reality or truth that is not otherwise available” (Caruth,
1996, p. 4). Yousef, as a traumatized subject, acts out the traumatic event uncon-
sciously and repetitively sustaining its impact in his psyche rather than reminis-
cing it as a memory that belongs to the past. e horrifying event of the Farhud
“is still present in the mind like an intruder or a ghost” (Luckhurst, 2008, p. 499).
Yousef ’s reliving of the traumatic experience, in the form of dreams and intrusive
memories “carries with it the emotional intensity of the original event” (Herman,
1997, p. 42). Although, as will be seen later, nightmares emerge as ashbacks,
they are far from being incoherent images, quite the contrary. In the novel, You-
sef’s dreams are ordered; that is, he gives us a coherent account of the past. And
not of any past, but of the moments of traumatic events. e past literally returns
to Yousef in his dreams; this is what Freud (1955) talks about when he writes:
“dreams occurring in traumatic neuroses have the characteristic of repeatedly
bring the patient back to into the situation of his accident, a situation from which
he wakes up in another fright” (p. 13). In this tension between Yousef’s inner and
outer world, the reader can understand and even empathize with him.
FEAR AND STARTLED REACTIONS
Another traumatic symptom that the traumatic subject experience in his life is
fear. According to Herman (1997), “In this state of hyperarousal, which is the
rst cardinal symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, the traumatized per-
son startles easily, reacts irritably to small provocations, and sleeps poorly”
(p. 35). Herman observes that Kardiner in her discussion of post-traumatic stress
disorder experienced by veterans of World War I observes that symptoms include
“startle reactions, hyperalertness, vigilance for the return of danger, nightmares,
and psychosomatic complaints” (p. 35). Nir (2018) arms that “Post-trauma is
most oen accompanied by feelings of fear, anxiety, and helplessness, as well as
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
38
intrusive memories of the event, eorts to avoid anything that might evoke the
event, constant alertness, and diculties achieving relaxation” (p. 38). As seen
above, fear is one of the PTSD symptoms and an individual’s feeling of vulnerabi-
lity and likelihood of harm increase “when the traumatic events include physical
violation or injury, exposure to extreme violence, or witnessing grotesque death.
In each instance, the salient characteristic of the traumatic event is its power to
inspire helplessness and terror” (Herman, 1997, p. 34). is is because such awful
and traumatic “events destroy the victim’s fundamental assumptions about the
safety of the world, the positive value of the self, and the meaningful order of
creation” (Herman, 1997, p. 51).
Due to the Farhud experience, Yousef’s life changes forever. Fear becomes his
companion: “He feared the masses and regarded them as a source of danger. He
was overwhelmed with apprehension every time he saw their faces and bodies
moving with a uniformity that obliterated individual distinctions” (Bader, 2011,
p. 131). His memories of the Farhud trigger in him a feeling of vulnerability and
insecurity. And, hence, he has extreme startle responses to sudden and unexpec-
ted stimuli and is always on the alert for danger. He has an intense reaction to
events and experiences associated with the traumatic event of the Farhud. You-
sef’s reliving of the traumatic experience carries with it the emotional intensity
of the violent Farhud itself and, therefore, he is constantly bueted by terror and
anger which are dierent from ordinary fear and anger in the sense that they
very easily aroused or provoked. Due to those harsh experiences, Yousef “felt
suocated and almost dead, for the country was like a ship sinking slowly while
his fears spiralled. e world around him was receding and collapsing…His own
existence was under constant threat” (Bader, 2011, p. 107). Ali Bader asserts that
“fear never entirely le Yousef ’s heart” until his death (Bader, 2011, p. 94). In one
of his letters to Farida years later, he writes that he went swimming in the river;
the swimming has “erased the humiliating fear that had always dominated his life
in Al-Torah…Fear had vanished completely from his heart because he had been
strong enough to overcome it” (Bader, 2011, p. 94). is letter makes the narrator
questions its truth; he asks many questions:
did his fear really and truly disappear?...Could the water wash away the terror
that had made him tremble for days on end at the sight of the slogans and swas-
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
39
tikas written on the city walls?...Did he lose his fear of the sons of high-ran-
king army ocers who wore uniforms with wide sashes and decorated their
shoulders with the emblems of their ranks? Was he no longer afraid of the ‘Boy
Scouts’ or the ‘Youth Brigade’ who paraded in their uniforms and searched Jews
for wireless equipment and mirrors on the allegation of sending signals to Bri-
tish aircra, and who, while searching the alleged culprits, would scream out,
‘Exterminate the germs!’ (Bader, 2011, p. 94)
ese questions exhibit the extent to which fear has penetrated Yousef ’s psyche.
He seems to fear everything. More than this, the narrator answers his own questi-
ons saying, “In fact, fear never entirely le Yousef ’s heart, for as soon as he found
himself facing any of them, his eyes would ll with tears and he couldn’t utter a
word. He wished he could hide away in a deep, empty well. He would try hard
to collect his courage but could only stutter, his power of speech gone” (Bader,
2011, p. 94).
Further, Yousef becomes highly anxious and hypervigilant for danger. e Far-
hud has a profound eect on Yousef ’s psyche, instilling life-long feelings of fear
and vulnerability. e 1963 Baathist coup, for example, triggers in him the same
feeling of fear and anxiety. One day he awakes to the clarion call of the coup, he
“felt a vague anxiety. He had a strong sense of déjà vu as horric images passed
through his head. e country he was longing to return to reminded him once
again of the events of 1941 when he was a child” (Bader, 2011, p. 136). Fear of
populists and mobs terrorize him:
[He] was absolutely terried, for he never had any faith in the people. Something
in them inspired fear in his heart and made him tremble. He was scared of the
mob and tried to keep as far away from them as possible. He had very little con-
dence in angry popular fervour. Perhaps the Farhoud was the reason, when
he’d seen the same ecstasy in the eyes of the mob, the ecstasy of sacricial oe-
rings, which turned individuals into a herd in a state of exhilaration. (Bader,
2011, p. 151)
Yousef loses his sense of safety and trust in people and the world. is sense of
safety which is acquired in early childhood in one’s relationship with his parents
or the rst caretakers and which “sustains a person throughout the lifecycle. It
forms the basis of all systems of relationship and faith” (Herman, 1997, p. 51) is
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
40
shattered during the Farhud. is trust is damaged by the violent or traumatic
event; the world is no longer hospitable and safe. is life-long feeling of fear
makes him question its longevity. In one of his letters to Farida, he writes, “How
long can a man continue to be afraid? How old should a man be before he elimi-
nates his fears? Here I am at y, and until now I’m as scared as I was at ten, or
even twenty. How old should I be to be able to sleep without nightmares, tears
or fear?” (Bader, 2011, p. 207). It seems that there is no answer for his questi-
on. Here, the novel articulates Yousef ’s incapacity to live peacefully amidst the
endless ow of horrifying images and the ensuing fear. is is what Yousef expe-
riences aer the Farhud, living in constant fear until his death.
ALIENATION AND REGRESSION
One of the predominant eects of trauma is social and cultural alienation. Yousef
pays a hey price for being a Jew; the repercussions of the Farhud can be seen
later in his life in his professional career as a violinist and in his relationships with
people around him. Herman (1997) maintains, “traumatic events call into questi-
on basic human relationships. ey breach the attachments of family, friendship,
love, and community. ey shatter the construction of the self that is formed and
sustained in relation to others” (p. 51). Studies published by the National Center
for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder arm that a general feeling of detachment is
also characteristic of the condition: “People who suer from PTSD…feel detached
or estranged…A person may feel strange or ‘not himself’ and feel disconnected
from the world around him” (qtd in Hain, 2005, p. 147). Yousef is socially iso-
lated and sinks deeper into an alienated world of his own making. Life becomes
boring for him. It has not the beauty that it once had: “ere was degeneration,
regression and a sense of defeat and collapse. Eids became depressing and the
festive spirit was almost gone. Society was no longer a beautiful presence but
an intricate and frightening labyrinth. Everything had become much narrower
in scope” (Bader, 2011, p. 107). Up until his death, Yousef has been constantly
avoiding people. He spends long times contemplating in his study room and wat-
ching trees in the garden, as he slips deeper into fear and horrible memories. In
his contemplation he is attempting to make some sense of the Farhud experience
which he cannot contain or understand. During the last years of his life, he lives
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
41
in constant anxiety and almost never leaves the house. ese feelings of anxiety,
fear and isolation nd their vent in music. Only when playing his violin does he
forget the hell of his life. He retreats to his own world, a world that he has created
with the help of music: “he withdrew into his inner world, dedicating himself
wholeheartedly to music. He wrote dozens of musical scores and lled his note-
books; he analyzed and studied music” (Bader, 2011, p. 105).
Yousef ’s trauma does not only evince the destructive consequences of violence
for children but also a deep mistrust of one’s surroundings. In this sense, e
Tobacco Keeper portrays how trauma leads the victimized to lose their connection
with the outer world. Yousef escapes from reality and truth by conning himself
to his claustrophobic world. His isolation from the outside world is an attempt
to nd and lead a peaceful life. He experiences a profound sense of estrangement
in his own homeland, as though he no longer belongs to the place that once de-
ned his identity. In one of his postcards to Farida, he writes “Isn’t there more to
life than nding oneself a complete stranger among other complete strangers?”
(Bader, 2011, p. 73). is is a very signicant question; it shows his total despair
and his incapability to form relationships. Part of Yousef ’s alienation is resultant
from his distrust of people around him: “When trust is lost, traumatized people
feel that they belong more to the dead than to the living” (Herman, 1997, p. 51).
at is, traumatic events shatter the sense of connection between the traumatic
subject and community, creating a crisis of faith. Yousef ’s pervasive distrust of
people around him could be due to the feeling of betrayal and animosity that
he experiences at the hands of the larger Muslim community. Hence, the larger
Muslim community looms dangerously on his wounded psyche and continues to
maim him psychologically even aer adopting a new identity and hiding behind
a Muslim facade.
Besides avoiding all people and spending his time alone at home, Yousef has
an inclination to avoid speaking either about the Farhud itself. Felman and Laub
(1992) describe the silence of traumatized survivors as “a fated exile yet also a
home, a destination and a binding oath…a double exile” (p. 58). Due to the horri-
fying scene which has been explicitly shocking, he nds words inadequate to
express himself or describe the scene. Herman (1997) asserts that it is so dicult
for witnesses and victims of trauma “to nd a language that conveys fully and
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
42
persuasively what one has seen” (p. 2). Further, Yousef’s silence can be evalua-
ted as a defence mechanism by which he protects himself against the traumatic
reality. Bader has depicted Yousef as an alienated and deeply wounded character,
incapable of working through his feelings of terror and pain and unable of inte-
grating with others. e Farhud has condemned Yousef to alienation, isolation
and endless pain.
APATHY SYNDROME
e apathy syndrome is characterized by “a loss of motivation, increased passivi-
ty, and feelings of lethargy and ‘atness’” (Hales et al, 2008, p. 1063). As a result
of his traumatic experience during the Farhud, Yousef undergoes a profound
psychological transformation marked by isolation and alienation. e violence
he witnesses and endures leaves an indelible mark on his psyche, leading to a
gradual erosion of his zest for life. He becomes mostly inactive, just sitting and
contemplating in his room for hours throughout the day. Yousef ’s relatively high
vitality and functionality are replaced by apathy and lethargy. He has no desire for
working; just contemplating things and when he contemplates, he looks empty.
Yousef suers from many symptoms that show up in traumatized people such as
apathy, lifelessness, inability to fantasize, weak notions of self and inability to act
at all in real life. Describing his condition, Bader writes:
Yousef didn’t come up with any great ideas when he gazed at the objects around
him. His view of things was profound but neutral. He captured things with
his feelings but never questioned anything. is great musician…accepted the
world quietly and serenely, accepted it for what it was, far from any metaphysi-
cal complexity. His life had no hidden agenda, he was a wide-eyed child among
the innite formations of nature. (Bader, 2011, p. 75)
e horrible experience of Farhud coupled with long years of alienation and
isolation have a horrible impact on Yousef. ey dim his vitality, exuberance and
will. Yousef ’s cognitive abilities suer from trauma and his perception of the
surrounding world is nullied. e Farhud violence induces apathy, numbness
and resignation in Yousef leaving him lifeless and drained of liveliness and vita-
lity. e outcome of this is a shallow life and emptiness. Compliance and submi-
ssion and numbness of spirit, loss of vitality and passivity seem to be important
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
43
outcomes of the debilitating eects of his traumatic experience.
Yousef ’s double incapacity numbs him, in the sense that he becomes a living
shell or a walking corpse, incapable of feeling anything. He is unable to feel hate,
sadness or anger. His cold behaviour can be explained with reference to Caruth’s
denition of post-traumatic stress disorder. She mentions a process of “numbing
that may have begun during or aer the experience” as one of the most common
behavioural aspects of trauma survivors (1995, p. 4).
RECURRING MEMORIES
According to Herman (1997),
Long aer the danger is past, traumatized people relive the event as though it were
continually recurring in the present. ey cannot resume the normal course of
their lives, for the trauma repeatedly interrupts. It is as if time stops at the moment
of trauma. e traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal form of
memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciousness, both as ashbacks
during waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep. (p. 37)
Herman adds, “Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as
the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work” (p. 1).
Talking about the persistence of traumatic events, Freud remarks, “e patient
is, one might say, xated to his trauma” (1955, p. 13). Kardiner (1941) describes
Freud’s “xation on the trauma” as a crucial feature of combat neurosis. Caruth
writes “To be traumatized is precisely to be possessed by an image or event”
(1995, pp. 4–5). at is why trauma is sometimes dened as “the unconscious/
unprocessed remains of the original event(s)” (Oliver, 2020, p. 12). In Yousef ’s
case, he is possessed by the traumatic event of the Farhud which refuses to be
buried. e reader is told that “the persistent images and nightmarish visions…
had haunted his dreams and tortured him ever since the Farhoud” (Bader, 2011,
p. 192). He is entirely possessed by the event until his death. For years, he has not
been unable to shake o the image of his burning aunt. e event returns insis-
tently and against his will. He is stuck in a repetitive process through which the
death of his aunt is constantly revived in his consciousness. e violence he has
experienced continues ashing back and his memories keep surfacing. Actually,
for Yousef, the past, to use William Faulkner’s frequently quoted words, “is never
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
44
dead. It’s not even past” (Faulkner, 1996, p. 85). e Farhud is neither dead, nor
past; it continues to exist and evoke strange reactions.
DEATH WISH
Yousef ’s tragedy culminates in his death wish. He is dominated by the idea of
death:
e mystical feelings that dominated Kamal’s [Yousef ’s] mind at that time were
linked with the mysterious death wish within him. He didn’t fear death, but
considered it a kind of ight into the unknown…Death might perhaps free
him, too, from the persistent images and nightmarish visions that had haunted
his dreams and tortured him ever since the Farhoud. (Bader, 2011, p. 192)
Yousef ’s death wish is a sign of his surrender to a tragic end. When he is unable
to work through his traumatic past, he wishes death to end his suering. is
persistent death wish is the outcome of his depression and distress which are,
without doubt, related to the Farhud experience and the following posttraumatic
nightmares. Due to the nightmarish life, he nds death an attractive alternative.
is death wish, which was “a real fact that couldn’t be ignored” (Bader, 2011,
p. 192), surfaces over and again. He seems to feel happy in the thought of being
freed by death from the despondency and misery of life. Loss of identity, com-
munity, home and family results in his abhorrence of and aversion to life itself.
PTSD AND DEFENCE MECHANISMS
e Farhud, as discussed above, was an event of inconceivable cruelty, looting
and violence. Yousef’s aunt is burned alive in front of him. As a Jew, Yousef’s
exposure to the Farhud horrors makes him vulnerable and an easy target for anti-
-Jewish attacks. His identity becomes a heavy burden on him:
He longed to dissolve and vanish into the ethereal. e weight of his identity
was too heavy for him to bear. It pushed him towards the past, to vanish into
forgetfulness. He wanted to get rid of his identity by fading away, by escaping or
hiding. If it wasn’t possible to do that, he had to hide behind another character,
a new name and a whole new life. (Bader, 2011, p. 106)
He, therefore, invents a new way of survival. In other words, under the tre-
mendous mental and emotional strain of the Farhud, Yousef is forced to nd a
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
45
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
way to survive. One of his strategies is to change his identity and so we see him
experiment with several identities and various ways of behaviour. e life thre-
at that he faces pushes him towards transforming his identity and acquiring a
new non-Jewish identity. He nds the Muslim identity as an eective alternative
for his Jewish one. Two times he manages to acquire a passport with a Muslim
name, one with a Shia Muslim name and the other with a Sunni Muslim name. To
survive in such horrible circumstances, he surrenders and wears the mask: “But
he had to wear a mask, because the mask made it possible for him to regain his
self-condence. It calmed his fears, expelled his demons and quelled the violent
cries in the depths of his heart, the depths that told of hell” (Bader, 2011, p. 106).
He masters the mask art and, in addition to professionalism in wearing the mask,
he physically and psychologically recreates himself as another person. e mask
or the new identity partially clams down his anxieties and removes his fears. e
novel demonstrates that Jews, as represented by Yousef, during those fateful years
had their identities shaped and reshaped by a number of factors. It also highlights
the fact that developing a specically Jewish identity comes into utter conict
when faced with racial discrimination and persecution. Hence, Yousef’s identity
has been reshaped to cope with the newly born world at a time of entire resha-
ping of the geographical and political boundaries not only in Iraq but all over the
world.
Moreover, changing identity becomes Yousef ’s apparent defence mechanisms
to cope with the traumatic event and its symptoms which have proved to have
healing eects on him. Acquiring a new identity and hiding behind a Muslim
mask helps him overcome his traumatized perception of life and regain his self-
-composure and condence. He manages to change his name, wife, religion and
lifestyle. However, in spite of this recreation, he still holds on to his original iden-
tity: “We must not forget ourselves entirely, even if we surrender to a role we’ve
invented, even when it is incompatible with our personalities, because we have
chosen to play a role” (Bader, 2011, p. 162). Yousef’s mask is a deliberate, full
covering and enables him to erase his apparent identity altogether. He remains a
Jew in disguise. His assuming of the Muslim name and identity is not the result
of his conviction of Islam as a religion but rather a strategy to survive in a hostile
land. Yousef does not deny his Jewishness but rather conceals it. is concealment
46
is prompted by a need to survive. In an attempt to assimilate in the larger soci-
ety, he enters into relationships with Muslim women and marries twice. Hence,
Bader’s novel attempts to explore the role of forged and fraudulently constructed
identities as a means of survival and a means used to cope with traumatic events.
To put it another way, forging is seen as a commonly-employed technique, used
for the sole purpose of survival.
Another defence mechanism is Yousef ’s resort to music. e trauma suered
by Yousef is acute to the point that he, as discussed above, wakes up screaming at
night. ese feelings of anxiety, angst and fear nd their vent in music. In other
words, amid these horrors and gruesome life, Yousef nds solace in music. He is
not just a violinist but rather a worshipper of Music. Describing his attachment
to music, Bader writes:
Classical music for him was akin to worship or prayer. He passed the time in
silence, his eyes xedly following the melodies as they intertwined. From the
moment the music started he paid no attention to what went on around him.
He was hopelessly romantic, for he held on to art as the nal thread that atta-
ched him to life. (Bader, 2011, p. 81)
He expresses himself in music, which greatly helps him overcome his fear and
heals his traumatized self. rough music, he seems to relieve his grief by expre-
ssing his emotion in notes. Music seems to articulate Yousef ’s physical trauma,
whose body responds to the traumatic events befalling the Jews and through
which he is confronting the constant displacement and disorientation. He himself
declares the comfort that music gives him: “As far as I’m concerned, I feel nothing.
Music gives me a kind of comfortable oblivion that drives away all the fear and
anxiety I have felt throughout my life” (Bader, 2011, p. 209). Only when playing
his violin does he forget the hell of his life. He is transformed into something
dierent by music. ough his traumatic experience has a huge impact on his life
and he never takes pleasure in work or in doing things, he attempts to be strong
and uses music as an exclusive haven where he loses himself and his terrifying
memories. It can be assumed that his strength, fortitude and even survival can be
attributed, at least partially, to the fact that he purged himself in music.
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
47
IRAQI JEWS AND THE FARHUD: TRAUMA AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
CONCLUSION
Bader’s e Tobacco Keeper deals with various themes including Jewish identi-
ty, history and religion and the communal conicts that emerged between Jews
and Muslims in Iraq in the rst half of the twentieth century. However, reading
Bader’s novel through the lens of psychoanalysis and trauma theory leads to sli-
ghtly dierent considerations and directions. e novel can be understood as an
endeavour to explore the eects of traumatic events – here it is the Farhud – on
a sensitive Jewish child. Going through the novel, it can be eectively said that
Yousef is a traumatized character, and with him Bader allows himself to explore
the trauma of Iraqi Jews that resulted from the Farhud. His trauma is caused
by the awful violence that he witnesses during the Farhud and the burning of
his aunt alive at the hands of mobs, an event that jeopardizes his physical and
mental integrity. at is, the Farhud and the violence which accompanied it have
been more than enough for Yousef to feel traumatized and, therefore, he suers
from various PTSD symptoms such as nightmares, alienation, fear and sense of
powerlessness, vulnerability and persistent memories; symptoms that he is unab-
le either to control or eradicate.
Bader’s e Tobacco Keeper provides a highly powerful vessel for expressing and
conveying the trauma of Jews’ lives which are fractured by horric violence and
unspeakable losses. By constructing the Iraqi Jewish community saga as the prime
means of narrativizing Arab Jews, Bader’s novel e Tobacco Keeper rewrites noti-
ons of home, identity and belonging to present a critique of the victimization of
Arab Jews in the early years of the twentieth century. e novel’s representation of
Yousef ’s trauma is in fact allegorical and replicates the communal trauma of the
whole Jewish community of Iraq. Focusing on the atrocities of 1941, the Farhud,
and nal departure of the Iraqi Jews aer 1948, the novel demonstrates how some
Jews empowered by determination and hope, even in the worst possible situati-
ons, have been able to survive. ey utilized various mechanisms for survival and
one of these mechanisms is forged identities. Since the Farhud can be considered
as a major national trauma in 1940s Iraq, its literary representations seem to be
an apology for the Iraqi Jews and a warning that a similar accident may happen
to other minorities.
48
Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraafi
To conclude, Bader’s novel, besides problematizing identity and liminality, is
embedded in various personal traumas that problematize the novel’s simple and
straightforward readings. It revolves around trauma and explores questions of
mental stability, traumatized self and the psychological potentials of surviving
trauma. As a groundbreaking work of contemporary Iraqi ction, Bader’s novel
invites an engagement with trauma theories and studies. Hence, the novel can be
read as a trauma narrative.
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Dr. Ebrahim Mohammed Alwuraa
Associate Prof. of English Literature
Department of Foreign Languages
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Al-Baha University
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5537-7548
Email: ebrahimwara@gmail.com; e.mohammed@bu.edu.sa
