My next book by Abbas Khider Die Orangen des Präsidenten/The President´s Oranges is written on the same autobiographical note, on the same background of the changing sands of Iraq´s last decades. From the Iraq-Iran war to the everyday hardships under Saddam to the American invasion.
There is more than a before - when Mahdi, the main character, whose POV reflects the story is brought to prison for presumed connections with members of the opposition and communists; when he was a child during the war with Iran, his father dead on the front - and an after, when he is freed from prison, without never being indicted. There is the absurdity of the everyday life during a dictatorship, where being a victim means being a random target of same random circumstances. Like, for instance, being offered in prison oranges on behalf of the president on the occasion of his birthday. Those who experienced the slightest time in a dictatorship may resonate with such situations.
The storytelling is stronger in this book than in the previous, although I was longing for a longer story, or for at least more content into the story. What I really appreciated though it´s the chance to read accounts from Iraq, during the wars and during the dictatorship, written by someone who had a direct contact with those times, who lived there and did not imagined or projected his or her expectations on an area turned into an Orientalist attraction for all the wrong reasons.
The book was written in German, in a prose which is entincing without being overcharged. Simplicity in writing, as in life, is the best direct way to the heart of a story.
And there is another book by Khider waiting for me to be read.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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