Full moon over Baghdad

By Akram Belkaïd

Full Moon over Bagdad: a collection of evocative short stories that recalls a key moment in the history of Iraq and the Middle East.
Apparently independent, these fourteen chapters are actually intertwined by the presence of the moon which marks existences and events, together as well as quotes from Arabic poetry. 
The reader will be enthralled by tales of diverse Arab cultures for which the moon has always held profound significance “… Each one of us is tied by the moon by an invisible thread that gathers us together the way silk fronds arrange the pearls of a necklace.”
Two decades have passed since the invasion of Iraq. Yet bombs and calamities continue to fall upon other countries affected by this event. Despite the geopolitical chaos it engendered across the Islamic world which has made peace seem a distant dream, these stories reveal the diverse resources of Arabic cultures that enable them to survive…

Akram Belkaïd is editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique. Born in Algeria in 1964, he graduated from an engineering school and began his career in Algeria writing for Le Quotidien d’Algérie and La Nation. He settled in France in 1996 where he wrote for the economic and financial daily La Tribune. Author of several works on Algeria, the Maghreb and the Middle East, his work also covers current events, commodity markets and international geopolitics of the entire Arab world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Europa Edizioni
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9791220149655

Book preview

II

After the road…

Gaza, by night. An immense open-air prison. A narrow cage for humans without rights or liberties. The shame of the so-called enlightened world. An eternal curse for those who permit and tolerate this infamy. First images. A grandmother, proud, dressed in a black housedress, a scarf over her hair, with white skin and an angular face from which two green eyes, barely moving, stare severely at her granddaughter. The granddaughter, precisely. In a flowery pajama. Seven or eight years old, the same eyes, the same mouth, fine little hands and a scar on her forehead. A room heated by a coal stove, rugs on the floor, two benches serving as beds or chairs, and a large, low, rectangular table. On the wall hang two frames, linked by amber prayer beads. In one, the photo of a young man with a serious face, again the same green eyes and a strong chin. In the other, a woman, also young, with thick brown hair over one shoulder and a far-away look suggesting