I'm in Seattle, Where Are You: A Memoir

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An award-winning Iraqi writer creates a new world for himself in Seattle in search of lost love. As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It's love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Chall

Reviews

Praise for Im in Seattle, Where Are You Wildly inventiveBuilt on keenly observed cultural, political, and personal details and populated by vivid characters, this bookillustrated throughout with Gzars starkly surreal ink drawingsdraws readers into a narrative web that is by turns shocking, funny, and deeply moving. A magical tragicomic story of love, sacrifice, and conviction. Kirkus Reviews An exquisite story of life and lost loveGzars nonlinear narrative and lyrical prose convey his deep desire to reunite with his loverHard to put down and difficult to forget. Publishers Weekly (starred review) With humor and heartache, Mortada Gzars new memoir spans the distance between Iraq and Seattlesometimes the connections are bracingvery funnyGzar writes beautifully. Seattle Times Mortada Gzar tells his story filled with heart, heartache, and humor. KING-5/New Day Northwest Translated from Arabic, this memoir uncoils slowly and leaves us wishing that even the best-told stories had happier endings. Crosscut (Cascade Pubic Media) This memoir from Iraqi novelist Mortada Gzar captured my full attention from the very beginning. Gzar offers a nuanced look at living as a closeted gay man in Iraqits a tale of love, bravery, resilience, and how to be yourself, even when the odds are stacked against youGzars experiences are as remarkable as they are unforgettable. Audible (Editors Select) At once hilarious and truly haunting, Im in Seattle, Where Are You is a story of so much: war and savagery, queerness and exile, love and loss. Mortada Gzar is the rare memoirist who understands memory itselfillogical, impossible, magical. Rumaan Alam, author of the National Book Awards finalist Leave the World Behind A memoir more formalistically creative than most novels! Mortada has extraordinary experiences, a generous heart, and incredible talent. Anton Hur, PEN Translates award-winning translator Mortada Gzars memoir, Im in Seattle, Where Are You, is a dazzling account of love, loss, and the complications of exile. This Iraqi novelist, filmmaker, and artist, a Whitman-like figure who contains multitudes in his embrace of the cosmos, understands that stories, like meteors, obey the laws of physics, and what emerges in the stories he tells to an array of characters, including the statue of a vagrant, is proof that while their energy does not fade or increase they will shape the lives and thinking of those who have the good luck to hear them. This is exactly the book to read in this fraught time. Christopher Merrill, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood Praise for Mortada Gzar The greatest success of Al-Sayyid Asghar Akbar (Mr. Little Big) is in building a space that links past with present and wonder tales with bleak contemporary realities like the American occupation of Iraq. Mohammed Khudayyir, author of Basrayatha: Portrait of a City Al-Sayyid Asghar Akbar is one of the few Iraqi novels that draws successfully on other arts, especially poetry. It can stand confidently beside the best Iraqi novels with its rich content and magical technique. Abd al-Khaliq al-Rikabi Al-Sayyid Asghar Akbar by the brilliant writer Mortada Gzar offers a unique, magical approach to prose narration. It is an entertaining novel with a surreal atmosphere that offers us a panoramic portrayal of the life of the city of Najaf and its ordinary citizens. Contemporary scenes blend with age-old symbols in it. Lotfiya al-Daylami This novel excavates the past, its characters lives, and what they have deliberately concealed. Ali Abbas Khafif Al-Sayyid Asghar Akbar is a distinctive Iraqi tragedy saturated with comedy that Mortada Gzar has written with a unique lexicon. Its characters are drawn from the bottom of Iraqi society, from its margins. In this novel we hear the voices of people who otherwise are never allowed to express an opinion openly. Saad Mohammed Raheem Al-Ilmawi (The Scientismist) was written by the skillful dreamer Mortada Gzar, who is an engineer, an artist, and a filmmaker. Its events are described by an imagination that is open full throttle. Twin brothers, Abbas and Fadhil, live through the period from the 1990s to 2003. One brother invents a manikin that answers questions but self-destructs when interrogated by a British commander. Maysalun Hadi, author of Prophecy of Pharaoh

Author Bio

Iraqi novelist, filmmaker, journalist, and visual artist Mortada Gzar was born in Kuwait in 1982, grew up in Basra, Iraq, and now lives in Seattle, Washington. He earned a degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Baghdad and was later a member of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Gzar is the author of four novels, a childrens book, and a short-story collection; he has illustrated two books for children. English translations of his work have appeared in Words Without Borders, World Literature Today, and Iraq + 100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq, and his journalism and political cartoons are featured in Arabic newspapers. Gzars animated films have been featured in international film festivals, his film Language was awarded a grant by the Doha Film Institute, and he created the Seattle Arab Film Festival hosted by the Northwest Film Forum.