The Mosaic Rooms presents a rare appearance by writer, filmmaker and poet Hassan Blasim on:

Wednesday 12 December, 7pm

Having fled the Iraq War in 2003, Hassan is one of the few fiction writers to have chronicled the destruction of his country from an Iraqi perspective (and to have been be translated in English).

This event celebrates the launch of his much-anticipated second collection of short stories, The Iraqi Christ (Comma Press).

Hassan Blasim (born 1973) is an Iraqi-born film director and writer who lives in Finland. He writes in Arabic.  His first collection of  stories, The Madman of Freedom Square (Comma 2009) shines a torch into the dark reality (and surreality) of the Iraq experience – from life under Saddam through the Occupation and on to equally harrowing Iraqi refugee experience. It has been sold into six different languages. Hassan has been described by The Guardian as ‘perhaps the greatest writer of Arabic fiction alive’, and is Winner of the English Pen WRITERS IN TRANSLATION award.

Jo Glanville, president of English Pen, will be chairing the event. There will be readings in Arabic and English, followed by discussion and Q&A with Hassan as well as translator Jonathan Wright.

FREE, rsvp@mosaicrooms.org