Zabibah and the King
Zabibah and the King ( Arabic زبيبة والملك, DMG Zabība wa-l-Malik ) is a novel by Saddam Hussein . It first appeared anonymously in Iraq in 2000 and is set in the time of Babylonia 700–600 BC. Near Tikrit .
Interpretation of the characters in the novel by the MEF
In 2002 , the Middle East Forum allegorically assigned the characters in the novel to current events:
- 'Arab - main character; a lonely, unhappy king; Saddam Hussein's character
- Zabibah - poor woman in an unhappy marriage, desired by 'Arab; the people of Iraq
- Zabibah's husband - cruel and nameless; the USA
- Hezkel - Emir and adversary 'Arabs. Zabibah lives near his palace; represents Israel
- Shamil - another enemy of 'Arab; stands for merchants and Jews
- Nuri Chalabi - a feudal ruler and opponent of 'Arab. Stands for Ahmad Chalabi
Summary
Love story between a powerful ruler and the beautiful, simple girl Zabibah. She is raped by her cold-hearted husband. According to the MEF, the rape happened allegorically during the Second Gulf War in 1991 by the USA.
distribution
Zabibah and the King was a bestseller in Iraq before the 2003 war, selling 1 million copies. According to the book cover, the proceeds were donated for aid purposes. It was performed as a musical and filmed as a 20-part television series. In 2004 the book was published in English. The translator Doris Kilias , who also translates Nagib Machfu's works into German, complained about the publisher's unprofessionalism, as she had neither received proofs nor a regular contract. This resulted in considerable cuts and additions by the publisher, which obviously wanted to make Hussein's work less anti-Semitic and anti-feminist .
expenditure
- Saddam Hussein: Zabibah and the King . A Lovestory. From the Arabic by Doris Kilias. Thomas Bauer Verlag, Bad Wiessee 2004, ISBN 978-3936440560
review
The work was judged by parts of the international critics as talentless and transparent tendentious propaganda . The German-language specialist criticism also came to a predominantly negative verdict: style, conception and history lacked any talent and the publisher's revealing way of editing only made the whole thing worse:
As a reviewer for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Angela Schader read a story "that generously disregards the questions of plausibility, dynamism and conclusiveness", not literature, but a " fable that is not based on any sense of reality and does not come to the edge with its own theses " which "at the end dissolves into babbling chaos". For Die Welt, Cosima Lutz found Hussein's narrative concept too simple to really stimulate a political discussion: “ Allegory or not, Hussein's struggle for attention works like reverse porn : talk, talk, talk, sex, talk, talk , talk. (...) Hussein's allegorical veil is too transparent to arouse the great political dispute the publisher is looking for. Brainwashing or deeper psychopathological knowledge are also not to be feared ”. In the satirical short review, Die Zeit resigned : "Saddam's novel was sold ten thousand times , and this at a time when good books by good people are gathering dust on the shelves".
“In» Zabibha and the King «, Saddam Hussein tries to justify the sovereignty of his reign of terror and the system of the Iraqi Ba'ath party with shallow dialogues and almost incomprehensible platitude. “Certainly, Your Majesty. The people need severity so that the good are protected and those who are weak and seducible fear the law, ”he lets Zabibah say. Ultimately, this book is nothing more than a propaganda tool translated into German by the former dictator ”.
reception
Sacha Baron Cohen's feature film The Dictator was advertised with claims that it was a film adaptation of the novel. In fact, this claim is a publicity stunt, as the black comedy is more about film satire.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ofra Bengio: Saddam Husayn's Novel of Fear , 9 Middle East Quarterly 1, 2002.
- ↑ Ariel Magnus: The Softened Dictator . In: TAZ . June 14, 2004, accessed November 2, 2011.
- ↑ Review summary of "Zabibah and the King" on perlentaucher.de . April 8, 2004. Accessed November 2, 2011.
- ↑ Cosima Lutz: Poet and Executioner: Saddam Hussein's novel "Zabibah and the King" . In: Die Welt , April 21, 2004. Accessed November 2, 2011.
- ↑ The last . In: Die Zeit , June 17, 2004. Accessed November 2, 2011.
- ↑ Heinz Erdmann: The tyrant and love . In: Jungle World No. 20, May 5, 2004. Accessed November 2, 2011.
- ↑ Film: Hard satire: Sacha Baron Cohen's "The Dictator" In: Focus . May 14, 2012. Retrieved May 18, 2012.
- ^ Sandra Zistl: Film review: "The dictator": Constitutional theory with Sacha Baron Cohen. In: Focus . May 17, 2012. Retrieved May 18, 2012.