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An Iraqi in Paris – a new edition

AN IRAQI IN PARIS 
– a riveting tale of innocence and dreams, misery and humour

• Out of print for nearly a year, this new An Iraqi in Paris with a new design and new cover, celebrates the English translation of the best-selling ‘gem of autobiographical writing’ in the Arab world, by an author who has been called ‘a relentless raconteur’, ‘a modern Odysseus’, ‘the Iraqi Don Quixote’.

• Samuel Shimon, a modern Odysseus whose name was always causing him problems, takes the reader on an unforgettable journey through Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Beirut, Tunisia, Cyprus and France, always with a copy of Les Miserables at his side.

• The author’s dream of making a film about his deaf-dumb father as he walks the streets of Paris, a homeless refugee, becomes the story of his Assyrian childhood in Habbaniyah and Ramadi in Iraq.

Providentially leaving Iraq just before Saddam Hussein installs himself as President, the young Assyrian narrator dreams of becoming a Hollywood film-maker after his hero John Ford, but after arrest and torture in Syria – accused of being a Jewish spy on account of his name, similar treatment in Jordan, and escaping execution in Lebanon by armed militia, he eventually lands up on the streets of Paris.

There he meets up with Jean Valjean and tries to escape his fate as a homeless refugee with wit, humour and amorous adventures, all the while writing the story of his childhood, his deaf-mute father Kika, and film buff Kiryakos.

After all his experiences, Samuel Shimon, ‘the runaway from museums’, writes an urgently needed and timely ‘manifesto of tolerance’.

Translated from the Arabic by Christina Phillips and Piers Amodia with the author.

      Samuel Shimon

••••••  Read an extract from the book:

   Arriving in East Beirut . . .

 . . .  On the way back, a military jeep approached me and I saw a fist aiming for my face. When I regained consciousness, I was lying in a darkened room and could hear the loud roar of the sea as though I was in a boat. I put my hand on my stomach, feeling intensely hungry. After some moments I tried to calm myself by telling myself I’d been grabbed by Phalangists. They’re a Christian militia. I’ll tell them I’m an Assyrian and have come to East Beirut wanting to emigrate to America through one of the Christian aid societies, and then they’ll set me free.’ . . . 

What they say about An Iraqi in Paris: 

“An Iraqi in Paris is somehow written against a tradition of previous autobiographical texts by Arab writers who sojourned in Paris since the early nineteenth century, but it surpasses most in point of veracity and candour. Samuel Shimon is a relentless raconteur who’s equipped with a keenly cinematographic and unflinching eye for detail, a laid-back attitude toward the vicissitudes of life on the Parisian streets. His childhood story of misery with dim glimmers of hope, conjures up on the screen flickering images of life on the margins in the Middle East. If nothing else, the image of the floating Carpenter typewriter, among others, is bound to haunt your dreams.”

Anton Shammas

“Pedlar, traveller, militant, refugee, literary authority? Above all, perhaps, this personable Iraqi is a movie buff, a kind of frustrated filmmaker. It would be hard to follow the chronological life course of so non-linear a man. Suffice to say that 10 years since settling in London – where his name has become synonymous with both Banipal, the English language’s best known journal of Arabic literature, and kikah.com, the vastly popular ‘website for Arab and international cultures’ – Shimon’s hard-won sense of fulfilment belies dreams unrealised . . .”

Youssef Rakha, Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo

An Iraqi Don Quixote. Samuel Shimon's life is a true novel. He dreams of starring in his own film – a comic one, preferably. A burlesque tale that inevitably attracts sympathy. The agnostic Assyrian becomes the first Arab writer to practise Jewish humour. 

Lire magazine, Paris

• • • • For more about Samuel Shimon, go to this link: https://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/62/samuel-shimon/

• • • • For more information about An Iraqi in Paris, please go to this link on our website: https://www.banipal.co.uk/banipal_books/34/an-iraqi-in-paris/

• • • • And from our Sales Rep, Inpress Books at: https://inpressbooks.co.uk/collections/banipal-books-1/products/an-iraqi-in-paris-1

• • • •. And from Bookshop.org:  https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/an-iraqi-in-paris-samuel-shimon/69b95420595536e1?ean=9780957442481&bkshp-astro=t    (NB: The book is 336 pages, not 672)