The Dispersal

Tashari is an Iraqi word for a hunting shot that scatters in every direction, and Iraqis use it for dispersal and loss. Dr Wardiya Iskandar practised medicine in the countryside of southern Iraq in the 1950s and later in Baghdad. After the Americans arrive, chaos and killings spread; doctors flee abroad, her brother's daughters leave one after another, and she keeps a list on her kitchen wall of murdered colleagues. At last she gives in to her children and leaves for Paris, where she refuses to be called a refugee. Her three children live on three continents, her eldest daughter a doctor in remote Canada. Faced with the family's dispersal, her grandson Iskandar creates an electronic cemetery on the internet, with a grave for every member of the scattered clan.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

251 pages in the original

Genres

Migration, Family, War (assigned by AI)

Set in

Iraq, France

First published

2013 by Dar al-Jadid

Author's age

61 when first published

ISBN

9781623718299 (Interlink Books, United States)

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Wikidata