By the beginning of the 2003 war, Iraqis had been at war for 23 years. The wars of the late twentieth, and early twenty-first century have therefore shaped generations of Iraqis, transforming the nature of Iraqi society itself. They have also driven millions of Iraqis from their homeland, creating Iraqi diasporas around the globe. Given that violence is what has driven most Iraqis into exile, it is perhaps unremarkable that we find it so prominently represented in the work of authors from diasporic communities, yet its ubiquity deserves more attention. After all, it is largely this body of writing that circulates around the globe in anglophone or translated forms, arguably further entrenching an oversimplified and problematic vision of Iraqis as helpless victims of war, sanctions, and government-backed coercion and control.

As Salman Rushdie famously observed, looking back on a home an author has left is always a complex process, which leaves only partial ‘imaginary homelands'. In the case of Iraqi writing, this re-presentation of a place that was once home from an exilic vantage point is made all the more complex by the cooption of the idea of 'the homeland’ into propagandist discourses, which served the very regime that had driven authors from Iraq in the first place. Through an examination of Muhsin al-Ramli’s novel, Scattered Crumbs (2000/2003), a text that locates us in a brutal, militaristic, and inherently violent Iraqi state during the Iran-Iraq war, this paper will consider how Iraqi authors re-imagine Iraq from afar. In particular, it will argue that such texts subvert the Ba’th regime’s nationalist, militarist discourses around war, community and especially artistic practice. While overtly engaged with the violence of the Iraqi state, al-Ramli also finds ways to assert the power of Iraqis to resist, and for love, art, and life to persist even in the face of seemingly overwhelming forces.

Nadia Atia's research examines Britain’s ever-evolving relationship with Iraq, and the ways in which Iraq and its people are represented in contemporary Iraqi literature available in the UK. She is currently working on a Leverhulme-funded project, which examines representations of home in contemporary Iraqi writing, particularly that which is available in translation, and has co-edited a forthcoming special issue of Wasafiri, with Dr Rehana Ahmed, titled House of Wisdom, which thinks about Islam, literature and cultures of textuality. She has worked at Queen Mary University of London since 2012.

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