Blasim, Hassan
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of Iraqi filmmaker and author Hasan Balāsim (1973- ), in Finland from 2004; his film work was done under the name Ouazad Osman. His short fiction has been assembled in at least three collections beginning with The Madman of Freedom Square (trans Jonathan Wright, coll 2008), almost all of his work dealing with the surrealistic tortures inflicted upon his native land since the British invasion of 1914, often as filtered through the diaspora experiences of its exiled citizens; the publication of his short stories, all composed initially in Arabic, has been wide but scattered, and is not traced here. Blasim's first novel, [transliteration from Arabic script not found] (2018; trans Jonathan Wright as God 99 2020), is an exercise in Fantastika, with diasporan narratives intermingling surreally into the Media Landscape, specifically through a blog which treats experiences of exile as a form of shared art.
Iraq + 100 [for variant subtitles see Checklist below] (anth 2016) is an Original Anthology containing tales set in Iraq in 2103, a century after the American/UK invasion of 2003 had destabilized the region. [JC]
Hasan Balāsim
born Bagdad, Iraq: 1973
works (selected)
- [transliteration from Arabic script not found] (Milan, Italy: Al-Mutawassit, 2018) [binding unknown/]
- God 99 (Manchester, England: Comma Press, 2020) [trans by Jonathan Wright of the above: pb/]
collections and stories
- The Madman of Freedom Square (Manchester, England: Comma Press, 2009) [coll: trans by Jonathan Wright from unrecorded sources: pb/]
- The Iraqi Christ (Manchester, England: Comma Press, 2013) [coll: trans by Jonathan trans from unrecorded sources: pb/]
- The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq (New York: Penguin Books, 2014) [coll: trans by Jonathan Wright from unrecorded sources: pb/]
- The Shia's Poisoned Child (Milan, Italy: Al-Mutawassit, 2016) [poetry: coll: trans by Jonathan Wright from unrecorded sources: an untraced version of this collection may have existed as early as 2009: pb/]
works as editor
- Iraq + 100: Stories from a Century After the Invasion (Manchester, England: Comma Press, 2016) [anth: trans by various hands from various sources: pb/David Eckersall]
- Iraq + 100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq (New York: Tor, 2017) [anth: vt of the above: trans by various hands from various sources: pb/David Eckersall]
links
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