The carefully crafted, subtle, and humorous stories in Packaged Lives
show Zangana at her best as a fiction writer. She portrays her subjects
keenly, sensitively, and lovingly but without compromise. Iraqis living
in exile come to life in her narratives as men and women who are caught
between two worlds. They cannot return to their homeland and are forced
to wait for news of Iraq from afar. At the same time, they are unable to
fully adjust to life in Britain and make a new home for themselves. The
question "What is home?" is at the heart of each story in this
collection. Her protagonists, who are stuck in ready-made lives, or
"packaged lives," struggle to set themselves free from a web of
relationships in which they are entangled. Art, poetry, and nature
provide lines of escape. The relief may be fleeting, but the peace of
mind and serenity are reached through the moment of epiphany at the end
of each story, a much-needed balm.