The World Through the Eyes of Angels (Middle East Literature In Translation)

Obviously autobiographical, at least in part, Iraqi author Mahmoud Saeed's latest novel examines the various kinds of love discovered by a young boy from Mosul before he has even become a teenager. Aimed directly at the heart, without a shred of easy sentimentality, the novel provides wonderful insights into the lives and cultures of the main characters - Muslim, Christian, and Jewish - all of whom are friends of the young boy and his family. Their interactions and emotions are so universal that the reader feels as if the characters are people we know, or would like to know, despite the differences of time, culture, and tragic history. Divided into twelve parts, much like short stories, the novel sweeps the reader along on a tide of empathy and makes him/her feel at one with the main character.Set in Mosul in the 1940s and 1950s, "when the people lived as brothers in total harmony as if they were one family," despite their varied cultures, the novel is completely apolitical. The boy, named once in the novel as "Saleh," lives in poverty but, from the age of four, does errands for his much older brother, running barefoot all day long throughout the city, even when the temperatures reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Gradually, the reader comes to know the boy, his family, and his friends, especially Sami, a Jewish boy, who loves to tell the boy stories from the movies which the boy does not see. The best stories the boy hears, however, come from Sheikh Ahmad Al-Shadi, who claims to be one hundred twenty-seven years old and who tells traditional stories about sheikhs, about the Siege of Mosul, and about history, including the training of women to fight with bows and arrows so they can fight against 450,000 Persians.The first of the love stories takes place when the boy discovers Selam, a little girl whose mother is dying, and who is so poor they have absolutely nothing in the "house" where they live. Though poor himself, the boy surprises her with little presents from the tiny amounts he earns, and she reciprocates with "treasures" she has found. Later, Madeleine, an outrageous tease, becomes "a treasure that enriched my spirit." With Mary, he enters a church for the first time, and Sami's sister Sumaya shows him a new side of family life and love, all before he has even turned twelve.Throughout, the author artfully recreates the real lives of real children, and despite the boy's young age, the love stories are very real love stories, complicated by the times and circumstances in which the characters live. Some stories have no real conclusions for the speaker, something he (and, one cannot help thinking, the author) mourns at the end of the book, and some have endings that are not happy. The girls/women with whom the speaker learns about love seem, generally, as innocent as he is, all of them part of the well-described cultures in which they live. And the sense of loss, as people from various groups, once integrated into the city, move out of Mosul, leave the reader with a feeling of gratitude to the author for preserving, historically, everything he remembers of the past through his characters here. The novel's honest intimacy make this one of my favorites of the year. Saddam City

A lovely book, clean and clear writing, with stories that enter your heart and resonate.

Loved this book! Reading more of his novels currently. He’s the best.