A young Iraqi woman watches her family life collapse amid the
country's political turmoil, turning to the seven world-famous paintings
hanging in her family's Baghdad villa to make sense of the chaos around
her. A work of translated fiction written by an award-winning Iraqi
writer and journalist.
The novel is set in Baghdad following the 2003 American invasion of Iraq
that toppled Saddam Hussein and unleashed chaos. At the center of the
narrative is a young woman, Ghosnelban, who belongs to what would have
been an aristocratic family under the former Iraqi monarchy and sees
herself and her family as guardians of an aristocratic code of noble
values and traditions. She witnesses her world and family life
collapsing as the violence around her intensifies.
The story encompasses three generations of the same family, and shows
the effects of successive coups and wars on Iraqi society by focusing on
the uprooting of a well-establish family that has deep roots in Iraq.
Ghosnelban interprets the events unfolding around her through detailed
descriptive analysis of seven paintings hanging on the walls of a formal
reception room in the family's palatial villa. The family's fate
embodies the wider ruination affecting the country at large.
