Najem Wali

Najem Wali (2015)

Najem Wali ( Arabic نجم والي, DMG Naǧm Wālī ; * October 20, 1956 in Basra ) is an Iraqi writer living in Germany.

Life

Najem Wali's parents had been married childless for five years and the marriage was therefore severely endangered under Islamic law before he was born. He first studied German literature at the University of Baghdad . After completing his studies in 1978, Wali was drafted into the military for a year and a half. On September 22nd, 1980, the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war , Wali's class was called up again for military service, whereupon he forged his military book and deserted to West Germany. Here he studied German at the University of Hamburg . After successfully completing his studies, Najem Wali moved to Madrid in 1987 to study Spanish literature. In 1990 he returned to Hamburg.

Najem Wali wrote his novel A Place Called Kumait - The Story of Circumcision as early as 1989. It was first published in Cairo in 1997 in Arabic, a year later in French and in 2002 in Swedish. The book breaks a taboo by calling circumcision torture. It therefore took eight years to find an Arab publisher to print the novel.

Today Najem Wali lives in Berlin and, in addition to his work as an author, also works as a journalist and correspondent for the Arab daily Al Hayat . He also writes for various German newspapers such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit . He is a member of the PEN Center Germany .

In 2018, his novel Sara's Hour , set in London and Saudi Arabia, was published.

Works

• 1985 short stories in anthologies
• 1989 The war in the entertainment district , transl. From the Arabic Jürgen Paul , Hamburg, perspol-Verlag, ISBN 3-89226-005-2
• 1990 Here in this distant city , transl. From the Arabic Thomas Schade, Hamburg, Galgenberg, ISBN 3-925387-66-8
• 1997 A place called Kumait , in Arabic. Cairo
• 2004 Die Reise nach Tell al-Lahm , transl. From the Arabic Imke Ahlf, Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 3-446-20538-1
• 2008 Jussif's faces. Roman from the Mekka-Bar , transl. From the Arabic Imke Ahlf, Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-446-23006-4
• 2009 Journey into the Heart of the Enemy: An Iraqi in Israel , Translated from the Arab Imke Ahlf, Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 978-3446233027
• 2011 angel of the south . Roman, from the Arabic by Imke Ahlf-Wien, Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-446-23643-1
• 2014 Baghdad Marlboro . Roman, from the Arabic by Hartmut Fähndrich , Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-446-24485-6
• 2015 Baghdad. Memories of a cosmopolitan city . Roman, from the Arabic by Hartmut Fähndrich, Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-446-24922-6
• 2016 In the head of terror . From the Arabic by Markus Lemke , Salzburg, Residenz Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7017-3402-3
• 2017 The Balkan Route: Curse and Blessing of the Millennia , translated from Arabic by Markus Lemke, Matthes & Seitz Berlin, ISBN 978-3957574510
• 2018 Sara's Hour , translated from Arabic by Markus Lemke, Munich, Hanser Verlag, ISBN 978-3446258266
• 2018 Abraham meets Ibrahîm. Forays through the Bible and the Koran , together with Sibylle Lewitscharoff , from the Arabic by Christine Battermann, Berlin, Suhrkamp Verlag, ISBN 978-3518427910

Publications

• 2015 Najem Wali on the excesses of IS in Northern Iraq: Destruction of culture as program NZZ March 18, 2015.
• 2008 Wars in distant lands , short story . Harper's Magazine Feb. 2008, pages 75-80,
• 1999 Waltzing Matilda , Writing the World on Globalization, short story

Awards

• 2014 Bruno Kreisky Prize for the political book ( Baghdad Marlboro )
• 2015 Artist in Residence at Villa Sträuli in Winterthur
• 2016/17 city ​​clerk of Graz
• 2019 residency grant from the artist residency Chretzeturm , Stein am Rhein

Research literature

• Sigrid Löffler: The Iraq - History of Failure , in: The new world literature and its great narrators , CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-65351-3 , pp. 183-212 (together with studies on Sherko Fatah , Pius Alibek , Sinan Antoon and Abbas Khider ).

Web links

Commons : Najem Wali  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Najem Wali in the catalog of the German National Library
• Katja Reimann: "Iraq is a madhouse". In: Tagesspiegel . March 19, 2003, accessed on April 29, 2011 (interview with Najem Wali on the situation in Iraq). 
• Najem Wali writer in conversation with Armin Kratzert. (pdf; 43 kB) In: Bayerischer Rundfunk . January 9, 2006, accessed April 29, 2011 . 
• Najem Wali: Rendez-vous with a car bomb. You visit the Iraqi capital at your own risk. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . Retrieved April 29, 2011 (Najem Wali on everyday life in Baghdad in early 2011). 
• DLF (Deutschlandfunk) nuances. Music and personal questions from March 6, 2016: Najem Wali, German-Iraqi writer, in conversation with Joachim Scholl

Footnotes

1. ↑ Najem Wali in an interview with Deutschlandfunk in the program Zwischenentöne on March 6, 2016
2. ↑ Why is torture in the name of God? , Humanistic Press Service, Interview with Najem Wali, Aug. 3, 2012
3. ↑ Fall of Man. In: sueddeutsche.de. March 12, 2018. Retrieved July 26, 2018 . 
4. ^ Prose text by the author (excerpt), in English. Language, transl. from the Arab. by Marilyn Booth
5. ^ Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book 2014 to Najem Wali for "Bagdad Marlboro" , press release of the Karl Renner Institute, December 29, 2014
6. ↑ Najem Wali July - September 2019 - artist residency Chretzeturm. Retrieved July 9, 2019 .