“Cell Block Five” by Fadhil Al-Azzawi (Iraq)

Synopsis

Being plucked from a Baghdad café and deposited in a cell block for political prisoners is a wakeup call for Aziz, the novel’s hero and narrator, a young man who has been living on automatic pilot as if he were a guest visiting his own life and he is finally forced to come to terms with the flawed world we inhabit and shape. Based on the author’s own incarceration in Iraq, Cell Block Five is a clear-headed, good-humored tribute to the prison’s men, both the inmates and the guards, and an indictment of man’s gratuitous inhumanity to man, pointing out that the transition from abused to abuser, tortured to torturer, can be an easy one.

Favourite Quote

Life’s harshness does not cancel out the truth that it is the most beautiful thing in existence – more beautiful and profound than anything else.

Nicola’s Creative Reading Group reading list

Year 4 – “Eastern Europe and the Middle East” (Oct 2009 – Jun 2010)

“Too Loud a Solitude” by Bohumil Hrabal (Czech Republic)
“The Door” by Magda Szabó (Hungary)
“The Last Supper” by Pawel Huelle (Poland)
“Death and the Penguin” by Andrey Kurkov (Ukraine)
“The Bastard of Istanbul” by Elif Shafak (Turkey)
“Cell Block Five” by Fadhil Al-Azzawi (Iraq)
“Girls of Riyadh” by Rajaa Alsanea (Saudi Arabia)
“To Know a Woman” by Amos Oz (Israel)
“Samarkand” by Amin Maalouf (Lebanon)