Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
The events unfolding within the book remind me closely of what I saw on the news as a kid. Anti-tribalism and anti-extremism commercials used to play into the early 2000s
A powerful account about the chaos that descended into Iraq, how it affected one particular man, tasked with dealing with death, but with the soul of an artist.
Translated from the Arabic by the author itself, at moments the prose just makes you have to stop and reflect about what motivates life and makes humans persevere.
Translated from the Arabic by the author itself, at moments the prose just makes you have to stop and reflect about what motivates life and makes humans persevere.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“The corpse washer” by Sinan Antoon (He’s Iraqi)
The original title is وحدها شجرة الرمان
It was a recommendation by a friend after I asked for Arab authors suggestions
It hurts my soul as a Syrian to see how many times the history can repeat itself without us learning from it, magnificent read it left me in such unease.. but helped me partially process what’s happening in Syria now
I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it too, as I personally think art is at its best when it’s tragic
Excerpts I liked:
“History is a struggle of statues and monuments, Father. I will not have a share in all of this, because I have yet to sculpt anything important. Even Saddam’s huge statue in Firdaws Square was brought down right after your death. I thought I would be happy since I detested him so much, but I felt I’d been robbed of the happiness. That was not the end I had imagined. Those who brought him down were the ones who put him there in the first place. (..)
Now some want to sever the head of Abu Ja’far al-Mansour, the founder of Baghdad, and bring down the statue of the poet al-Mutanabbi. Even the statues are too terrified to sleep at night lest they wake up as ruins.”
“Marx used to say that ‘history always repeats itself twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.’ And what we are witnessing now in Iraq is a farce. Who would’ve ever believed that Iraq’s prime minister would be from the Da’wa Party, spear-heading a backward sectarian list? When I left Iraq, the Da’wa Party was banned and later the Americans placed it on the list of terrorist organizations. Now Bush shakes hands with al-Ja’fari? It’s a bizarre world.”
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
*read for class*
first five-star read of 2025 was assigned to me but boy am i glad it was!
first five-star read of 2025 was assigned to me but boy am i glad it was!
This book almost feels like poetry and also like a lesson in history told from the people's perspective. It's heartbreaking and sweeping and I'm not sure if I ended the book feeling satisfied.
Over Christmas, I read [b:American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History|11887020|American Sniper The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History|Chris Kyle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348628279s/11887020.jpg|16845778]. It left me feeling knocked off-balance a bit. While I made an effort to embrace Kyle's story as his own valuable experience in Iraq, the unacknowledged humanity of his enemies brought an ache, an emptiness that I couldn't shake. A bit of research led me to this, Sinan Antoon's award-winning novel. Proving to be as elegant as it is jarring, as unveiled as it is beautifully woven, an authentic, rich work, The Corpse Washer brings us Jawad, a young man with a name and a family, who looks Death in the face, day after day, from a profoundly different angle. Unforgettable.