Bayan Khatib | Blog | Just Five Minutes

Iraq: The Untold Tales

A Collection of Stories and Poems

Through searing stories of loss and destruction to revealing tales of daily hardships, this collection of short stories and poems puts flesh, heart and soul to the rounded numbers we hear in the news.

In Iraq: The Untold Tales, one family tries to celebrate a birthday under the threat of routine raids. A teenage girl receives an unusual gift from her father. A man leaves his home at sunrise to join a half-mile lineup for gas. A farmer awaits a lull in the bombings so he can bury his dead in the neighborhood soccer field. A mother sends her son to buy bread and later finds his bicycle abandoned on the side of the street…

“Whether Bayan Khatib seats us at the kitchen table stuffing grape leaves with teasing teenagers, or takes us on a heart stopping ride on a rickety bike with a middle-aged mother, we’re fully there.”
-Karen Graham, author of Will I Have Hair for Grad?

Introduction

Excerpts