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Zubaida's Window: A Novel of Iraqi Exile
In the first novel in English by an Iraqi to focus on the 2003 invasion, Iqbal Al-Qazwini masterfully describes the tortured psyche of a woman who fled Iraq but still longs for her homeland.
Like millions around the world, Iraqi exile Zubaida watches the invasion on her television. As she sits in her apartment in Berlin, the unreal and constantly flickering images of US forces closing in on Baghdad are her only connection to the war a world away. But unlike most viewers, she can remember the city of her childhood, where memories of her loving grandmother and of attending movies with her father mix with nightmarish images of hangings in Al-Tahrir Square. Struggling to deal with the horror on the television and the ghosts of her memory, Zubaida, in her grief, creates her own world, one in which she can almost go home.
Haunting and lyrical, Zubaida’s Window reveals the individual costs of war and the resilience of those who live through it.
Like millions around the world, Iraqi exile Zubaida watches the invasion on her television. As she sits in her apartment in Berlin, the unreal and constantly flickering images of US forces closing in on Baghdad are her only connection to the war a world away. But unlike most viewers, she can remember the city of her childhood, where memories of her loving grandmother and of attending movies with her father mix with nightmarish images of hangings in Al-Tahrir Square. Struggling to deal with the horror on the television and the ghosts of her memory, Zubaida, in her grief, creates her own world, one in which she can almost go home.
Haunting and lyrical, Zubaida’s Window reveals the individual costs of war and the resilience of those who live through it.
- GenresMiddle EastFiction
144 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2008
About the author
Iqbal Al-Qazwini
1 book3 followersIqbal al-Qazwini is an Iraqi journalist and novelist. She was exiled in Berlin, Germany in 1978 when she was in her early 20s, a consequence of Saddam Hussein's rise to power in her homeland. She has lived in Germany ever since. She has been a member of PEN International since 1993.
Al-Qazwini is best known for her 2005 novel Mamarrat al-Sukun (Amman: Dar Azminah, 2005). This was translated into English under the title Zubaida's Window by Azza el-Kholy and Amira Nowaira. As a journalist, al-Qazwini's work has appeared in various German and Arabic periodicals, such as Asharq Al-Aswat and Al Riyadh (newspaper).
Al-Qazwini is best known for her 2005 novel Mamarrat al-Sukun (Amman: Dar Azminah, 2005). This was translated into English under the title Zubaida's Window by Azza el-Kholy and Amira Nowaira. As a journalist, al-Qazwini's work has appeared in various German and Arabic periodicals, such as Asharq Al-Aswat and Al Riyadh (newspaper).
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 9, 2016
Although this book has been described (by the LA Times) as a "dirge" and as a "confusing stream of consciousness" by some Goodread-ers, I found it to be a fluid, more-or-less chronological account of the days in which a woman who had seen much suffering in Iraq and lived in exile in Germany for many years, is now forced to watch the final destruction of her country as the United States invades Iraq. This is a masterful account of an emotional roller-coaster.
Our childhoods and every state of our development are inexorably bound up with our national history. Just as we might ask: where were you when Kennedy was assassinated? Al-Qazwini recalls when young King Faisal was murdered in a coup. She recalls each member of a family that has been blown to the far corners of the earth. Her digressions into Iraqi history and all its calamity become part of Zubaida's narrative, just as 20th Century Jewish writers have been unable to separate the Shoah from their own family stories.
One of the saddest tales in the novel is of Zubaida's brother, who lives two hours away in Leipzig. He calls one day to tell her he is depressed and she immediately makes up an excuse to visit him. They agree to meet at the train station. However her brother never shows up and, despite going to his apartment, leaving a note and waiting weeks for a reply, Zubaida never hears from him. Perhaps he has just picked up and left Germany, she thinks. But then she reads an article about an unknown foreign man who has leapt to his death in front of a train in Leipzig. This is both the fate and the fear of the refugee: to die un-mourned either at home or in exile.
Zubaida is pulled to leave and pulled to stay in Germany. She often buys tickets to some destination, packs a suitcase and passport, but ultimately shreds the ticket and the passport remains unstamped.
But suddenly, with an empty suitcase she is in Amman, Jordan, where she is about to take the long bus ride to Baghdad. An old woman tells her how painful exile is, the cab driver inquires about her life in Europe. She recalls the sky, the warmth, the news in Arabic, the markets, the sadness, but also the vividness of life in the Middle East. And then she closes the suitcase and is once again in her cold Berlin apartment.
Now Zubaida is curled up in a ball in front of the television. The war is just a jumble of frightening images as once-powerful men take off their medals, don civilian clothes, denounce the dictator, and hop in non-military vehicles while giving CNN interviews for the last time. The dictator's statue is destroyed at Firdaus Square, "coalition" forces have seized control, and Iraq has been subdued and destroyed.
Zubaida feels a certain kinship with her adoptive city, where dictators have fallen and the people rejoice their sudden freedom. Suddenly long-repressed memories and feelings surface and she writes non-stop for four days. But the history she has recorded feels false, manufactured, and she leaves the pages in the rain to un-write themselves, then throws all these recollections in the dustbin. As the apartment building strangely empties of its elderly residents, Zubaida is alone with her arrhythmia, having fallen into a fitful sleep.
Our childhoods and every state of our development are inexorably bound up with our national history. Just as we might ask: where were you when Kennedy was assassinated? Al-Qazwini recalls when young King Faisal was murdered in a coup. She recalls each member of a family that has been blown to the far corners of the earth. Her digressions into Iraqi history and all its calamity become part of Zubaida's narrative, just as 20th Century Jewish writers have been unable to separate the Shoah from their own family stories.
One of the saddest tales in the novel is of Zubaida's brother, who lives two hours away in Leipzig. He calls one day to tell her he is depressed and she immediately makes up an excuse to visit him. They agree to meet at the train station. However her brother never shows up and, despite going to his apartment, leaving a note and waiting weeks for a reply, Zubaida never hears from him. Perhaps he has just picked up and left Germany, she thinks. But then she reads an article about an unknown foreign man who has leapt to his death in front of a train in Leipzig. This is both the fate and the fear of the refugee: to die un-mourned either at home or in exile.
Zubaida is pulled to leave and pulled to stay in Germany. She often buys tickets to some destination, packs a suitcase and passport, but ultimately shreds the ticket and the passport remains unstamped.
But suddenly, with an empty suitcase she is in Amman, Jordan, where she is about to take the long bus ride to Baghdad. An old woman tells her how painful exile is, the cab driver inquires about her life in Europe. She recalls the sky, the warmth, the news in Arabic, the markets, the sadness, but also the vividness of life in the Middle East. And then she closes the suitcase and is once again in her cold Berlin apartment.
Now Zubaida is curled up in a ball in front of the television. The war is just a jumble of frightening images as once-powerful men take off their medals, don civilian clothes, denounce the dictator, and hop in non-military vehicles while giving CNN interviews for the last time. The dictator's statue is destroyed at Firdaus Square, "coalition" forces have seized control, and Iraq has been subdued and destroyed.
Zubaida feels a certain kinship with her adoptive city, where dictators have fallen and the people rejoice their sudden freedom. Suddenly long-repressed memories and feelings surface and she writes non-stop for four days. But the history she has recorded feels false, manufactured, and she leaves the pages in the rain to un-write themselves, then throws all these recollections in the dustbin. As the apartment building strangely empties of its elderly residents, Zubaida is alone with her arrhythmia, having fallen into a fitful sleep.
June 16, 2009
this is not a book for everyone, most people should not read it. It is basically an extremely confusing stream of consciousness/fantasy. Disturbing and insightful. I liked it.
June 5, 2024
I feel bad for giving this such a low review, and I don’t think it’s the fault of the book or the author. I’ve read many books about the war in Iraq, all of which were engaging, but Zubaida’s Window left me feeling cold which I feel is the fault of the translation. It’s way too stilted, slow, tedious, and boring. I don’t think it was bad writing, but a lot was lost in translation. Such a shame because it’s a story worth reading, but there are other books on the subject that are way more interesting and better translated than this.
October 28, 2021
felt lowkey Days of Abandonment vibes with the claustrophobic apartment setting. but i think the translation probably took away a lot from the writing. the sentences felt quite stilted. wish i could have read this in the original Arabic.
August 25, 2008
Heaven knows I tried to read this book but...... When reading becomes a painful process it is time to shut the book and that is what happened to me with this particular novel. I had been looking forward to reading the story of an Iraqui exile from a woman's point of view so I was truly disappointed when I couldn't get a purchase on this book. I describe the prose as slow, tedious,and painful,; much like the protagonist's life.
June 2, 2017
Novel written by an Iraqi woman living in exile in Berlin since 1978. This is the first work I've read by an Iraqi author. I recommend it especially for the insights in to the mind of an exile watching the war in Iraq on TV, from afar. Very haunting.
July 15, 2013
For those living in exile or in the diaspora, this is a good read on alienation and memory; of living in the in-between.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews