Raghad Saddam Hussein said her father finished the
novel March 18, 2003 -- a day before the U.S.-led
war on Iraq began -- and had expressed a wish to
publish the book under his name. The three other
novels he wrote were simply signed, ''Its author.''
''It was my father's will to publish this book,''
Raghad told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview.
An Iraqi artist designed the cover, she said, and a
Jordanian company will first publish the book in
Arabic and follow with an English edition and a
French translation. |
Raghad Saddam Hussein
Photo : CNN |
|
Raghad also wrote a dedication to her father on the
book's back cover.
''To the beat of the heart, to the eye and to the
father of the Iraqis ... to the creator of men and
heroes ... to the one who taught us all the great
values,'' she wrote.
''You, who raised our heads high, the heads of the
Iraqis, the Arabs and the Muslims ... we present to
you our souls ... to the father of the heroes, to my
beloved and dear father, with all my respect and
glory to you.''
Some Arab newspapers published excerpts of the novel
last year without permission, the first of which
appeared in the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq
al-Awsat.
Ali Abdel Amir, an Iraqi writer and critic who has
read the whole manuscript, said the novel was
similar in style to the other three attributed to
Saddam.
Abdel Amir said ''Get Out, Damned One'' describes an
Arab leading an army that invades the land of the
enemy and topples one of their monumental towers, an
apparent reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on
the World Trade Center in New York by Islamic
militants of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
Asharq al-Awsat, which published the entire work
over several days last year, said the manuscript was
found in the Ministry of Culture after Baghdad's
fall. It said it had received its copy from Saddam's
physician, Alla Bashir, who fled Iraq after the war
and was believed to be in Qatar.
The novel opens with a narrator, who bears a
resemblance to the Jewish, Christian and Muslim
patriarch Abraham, telling cousins Ezekiel, Youssef
and Mahmoud that Satan lives in the ruins of Babylon
destroyed by the Persians and the Jews.
Ezekiel is portrayed as greedy, ambitious and
destructive. Youssef, who symbolizes the Christians,
is portrayed as generous and tolerant -- at least in
the early passages.
''Even if you seize all the property of others, you
will suffer all your life,'' the narrator tells him.
Saddam also has been credited with writing three
other books: ''Zabibah and the King,'' ''The
Fortified Citadel'' and ''Men and a City.''
''Zabibah and the King'' tells a story of a leader
who sacrifices a luxurious life for the sake of his
people.
''The Fortified Citadel'' described the rise to
power of Saddam's Baath Party.
''Men and a City'' is widely viewed as a thinly
veiled autobiography, presenting him as powerful and
heroic.
Saddam, 68, has been jailed under American control
at a U.S. military detention complex near Baghdad
airport since his December 2003 capture near his
hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
He faces charges before a special war crimes
tribunal that include killing rival politicians over
30 years, gassing Kurds in the northern town of
Halabja in 1988, invading Kuwait in 1990, and
suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991. No
trial date has been set. If convicted, he faces the
death penalty.
AP
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