| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article offers a literary analysis of the novel The Hand, the Land and the Water (Al-Yad wa'l ard aa'l ma'), written by communist intellectual Dhu Nun Ayyub (b.1908). I read this novel in an attempt to analyze the boundaries between Baghdad and countryside (al-rif), as understood by the novel's protagonists, and to underscore the ways in which such boundaries were not only constructed, but also crossed and challenged. The novel conveys many themes that occupied the Iraqi leftist intelligentsia at the time, such as the abuse of peasants by their sheikhs and by the state. It was one of the first fictional representations of the Wathba, and thus can be seen as an endeavour to understand the meanings of this very important moment in Iraqi history.
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