At Rest in the Cherry Orchard

Iraqi Said Jensen, living in Norway, is forever haunted by the ghost of his father, killed by the Iraqi regime before he was born, and nightmarish visions. On being called to Baghdad where a mass grave, possibly holding his father’s remains, will be opened, he thinks about the peaceful cherry orchard his neighbour Jakob was laid to rest in. Through the story of Iraqi Said Jensen, who is granted asylum in Norway and builds his life there but is forever haunted by his father’s disappearance, Iraqi author Azher Jirjees’s debut novel captures brilliantly the way Iraqi life flips from reality to unreality and back as people have to find ways to live with the bloody horrors and deprivation that count as ‘normal life’, leading to countless people fleeing and countless others thrown into mass graves. A monumental account of human endurance in the face of mounting horrors.

About the Author :
Azher Jirjees is an Iraqi writer and novelist, born in Baghdad in 1973. In 2005, he wrote a satirical book about terrorist militias entitled The Earthly Hell, which resulted in an assassination attempt against him and he was forced to flee the country. His other works include two short story collections, Fouq Bilad al-Sawad (Above the Country of Blackness, 2015) and Saani‘ al-Halwa (The Sweetmaker, 2017), and two novels. His first novel, At Rest in the Cherry Orchard (al-Nawm fī Haql al-Karaz, 2019), was longlisted for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. His second novel The Stone of Happiness was shortlisted for the same prize in 2023. Jonathan Wright is an award-winning translator of contemporary fiction by Arab authors, including Basma Abdel Aziz, Ahmed Taibaoui, Mazen Maarouf, Amjad Nasser, Ahmed Saadawi, Hassan Blasim, Saud Alsanousi, Sinan Antoon, Youssef Ziedan, Hamour Ziada, Ezzedine C. Fishere and Khaled el-Khamissi, Bahaa Abdelmegid, Rasha al-Ameer, and others. His first literary translation was the best-selling Taxi (2008) by Khaled el-Khamissi and his most recent is The Disappearance of Mr Nobody by Ahmed Taibaoui. He has won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation twice: in 2013 for Youssef Ziedan’s Azazeel, whose Arabic original won the 2009 IPAF, and in 2016 for Saud Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk, whose Arabic original won the 2013 IPAF. In 2014 he won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for his translation of Hassan Blasim’s The Iraqi Christ. He translated Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (IPAF winner, 2014). His translation of the short story collection Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. In 2020 he won second prize in the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding for his translation of Sinan Antoon’s Book of Collateral Damage. Other specific translations include The Longing of the Dervish by Hamour Ziada, The Televangelist by Ibrahim Essa and Land of No Rain by Amjad Nasser (commended for the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize).