Three leading Iraqi authors debate the impact of war on their country and its effect on the nation’s cultural identity exactly nine years on from the allied invasion. Ali Bader, Inaam Kacachi and Samuel Shimon are all prestigious writers and have recently published novels that reflect on the state of the nation.
Bader, an author of ten novels who has previously been longlisted for the Arab Booker, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, recently published The Tobacco Keeper. In it, a journalist and former member of Saddam’s army returns to Baghdad to try to uncover the circumstances surrounding the death of a celebrated violinist.
Kachachi’s The American Granddaughter was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009. It features an Iraqi-American who returns to her homeland as an interpreter for US forces and finds herself torn between competing allegiances. Kachachi was born in Iraq but now lives in France. She writes for Arabic newspapers and has previously written three books.
In Shimon’s An Iraqi in Paris, a young Iraqi writer sets out to become a Hollywood film maker but ends up as a refugee on the streets of Paris. Shimon is an Assyrian writer who was born in Iraq. He is assistant editor of BanipaI, the leading magazine of Arabic literature in English.

The event is chaired by Dr Alastair Niven, principal of Cumberland Lodge, Windsor, and author of several books on post-colonial writing.