Zubaida’s Window: A Novel of Iraqi Exile

By Iqbal Al-Qazwini
Feminist Press

Zubaida's Window is a compelling, difficult, and important novel. The age-old questions of “where is home?” and “can you ever return to a home you left behind?” are given urgently fresh consideration in this first novel written by award winning Iraqi journalist Iqbal Al-Qazwini. Released by CUNY’s Feminist Press, it is - according to the back cover - the first novel by an Iraqi exile published in English that deals specifically with the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. The major themes of the novel - exile, violence, war, and displacement - are present in much contemporary fiction. However, Zubaida's Window treats these themes in two very specifics contexts: Iraq in late 20th and early 21st centuries and East Berlin throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including the fall of the Berlin wall. The novel challenges readers to better understand the emotional, cultural, and personal costs of war and government sponsored repression.

“Will the homeland turn into nothing but memories?” asks the novel’s protagonist, Zubaida, a middle aged Iraqi woman living in Berlin in 2003. She watches the events of the 2003 United States-led invasion of Iraq in petrified awe as they unfold in her living room via satellite television. The novel flows seamlessly between past and present, experienced and imagined, leaving the reader more with more feelings than facts.

Like many novels of exile, history plays a central role. At various points Zubaida remembers public hangings and political turmoil brought on by Iraq’s tumultuous recent past of coup d’etats, ethnic cleansing, and wars with Iran and the United States. The afterword, written by anthropologist Nadje Al-Ali, alerts western readers to the finer points of this history. While the locations that pepper Zubaida’s memory sound eerily familiar to all who have listened to the news for the past five years — Mosul, Tikrit, Al-Najaf, and, crucially, Baghdad — what emerges is an understanding of where these places are located in the heart, instead of on a grainy newsroom map.

Al-Qazwini’s dense prose is a distinct strength. It invites the reader to identify with Zubaida instead of seeing her as the outsider she feels herself to be in the cold city of Berlin. Zubaida’s experience of being both a westerner and an Iraqi as she watches the war on TV and marches in anti-war protests can be simultaneously relatable and eye opening for western readers. The ending of the novel, like the war in Iraq, is uncertain. This is not unexpected as the story deals so deeply with the long-term psychological effects of war. With its unflinching treatment of the role power hungry governments play in fueling war and oppression, Zubaida's Window is a must read for anyone looking for a fresh perspective on the war in Iraq and its effects on the lives of Iraqis.

Review by Eleanor Whitney