The Words of an Iraqi War Survivor & More

About the Book

Zaineb Alani reminds us of the terrible and lasting cost of war to civilians, and not only “the infinite bang” of the fall of Baghdad. We all have much to learn from her eloquent reflections, her sharp and mordant memories, and the economy of her lines.

Andrew Himes, executive producer of ‘Voices In Wartime’ and editor of the ‘Voices In Wartime Anthology’.

About the Author

Zaineb Alani writes with intense passion and vivid images of her Mesopotamian heritage and the horrors of living in war-torn Iraq during the eight-year Iraq/Iran war during the Eighties and the six-week Gulf War in 1991. Zaineb was born in 1966 in North Africa to Iraqi diplomats and lived in Peking, China and Dar-es-Salam,Tanzania. She returned with her family to her native Iraq in 1980, just in time to experience the ravages of two successive wars. She received her B.A. in Translation in 1987, and M.A. in Contrastive Linguistics in 1992 from Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq. She taught English as a Second Language at The University of Jordan in Amman beginning in 1994 before accepting a Fulbright scholarship in 1996 to pursue a graduate degree in Education at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she currently resides and works as an instructional designer and consultant. Responding to the entreaties of family, Zaineb’s mother finally left Baghdad a week before the 2003 invasion but dozens of family members and close friends still reside there. Translated into poetry, Zaineb’s pain and compassion for her native land and its people is palpable and sears the reader’s soul. She laments the death of her father and the loss of friends and family. She sings of her childhood with tender memories of her sister and brother. Her words evoke the suffering and soaring of the human spirit. Joanne McKenna