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Through www.kickstarter.com you can help Nisreen Abu Klam translate her novel about her suffering under Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, and the kidnapping of her son. Click on the hyperlink below after reading to Participate.
My name is Nisreen Abu Klam, born in Baghdad to a well-known
middle-class family. My parents both enjoyed books and reading. I graduated
from a civil engineering department and worked compulsory by what was known in
Iraq as the Central Appointment Law for a few years in my profession. I have
made many prior attempts to write novels and articles, but the unstable way of
life in Iraq, the lack of the services, and the general unavailability of
domestic items most of the time impose additional loads on Iraqi women. I had
to leave Iraq to follow my husband who was teaching at various universities in
the Middle East. Such travels gave me the opportunity to see more places and
elevate my writings.
I was inspired to write this book because
of the state of grief and oppression that possessed me since the day my beloved
son was kidnapped. To this present day he has never come back to me.
This book covers the time period of
1980-2010. It begins after the year 2003, when the American Army came to
liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Al-Qaeda men from Iraq and abroad, entered
Iraq through the borders of neighboring countries and they started kidnapping
all the people who participated with the Americans to redevelop Iraq. I am one
of the people who was targeted by Al-Qaeda. They kidnapped my boy because they
did not believe in redevelopment and thus did not want us to take part in this
process. They killed him. After asking me for ransom money, our whole immediate
family was threatened so we had to flee the country. We applied through the
United Nations to find somewhere we could find safety and refuge. We came to
the U.S.A. and settled in San Diego.
After many years of the healing process, I
decided to write my story and put all these experiences into a book so that the
American people will be able to understand the suffering of Iraqi women during
the wars that Saddam Hussein created. I began writing this book in 2009 having
been inspired through attending a writing group. I heard many stories from
other women from all over the world in this group and the injustices they had
experienced. I kept hearing stories from other women in the Iraqi community who
had similar stories to myself. I felt I was finally in a safe space where I could
dedicate myself to writing this book and to tell the stories of those who could
not write for themselves.
This books is about how the men of Al-Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein worked to destroy the social pattern of society. This book
details the injustice all Iraqis had to endure as an inevitable result of the
control of the dictatorship on the capabilities of the Iraqi people. I wanted
my personal story to be shared and to allow the world to know of the pain and
suffering the Iraqi people experienced as a result of 35 years of dictatorship.
My
primary goals for this book is for it to be easily accessible to a large number
of readers. In particular, this book was written for Americans, without whom
our dictator would still be in power. This book was written in America after
running away from Iraq. For this reason, I wanted this book to be translated to
English so I can receive feedback from American readers having provided them
with well-documented knowledge and experiences.
Risks and challenges
The challenges with this project lie within
translation itself. The challenge of translation is two-fold. First, it is
clearly essential that the translator needs to be proficient in both English
and Arabic as a very basic ingredient for translating the written word.
Secondly, the translator must be able to stylistically translate the sentiment
and feelings of the original text and be able to emote the same kind of
feelings for the reader.
I am currently working with a published
author and friend who is helping me in the translation process to ensure that
how the book is written in Arabic translates emotionally in English.
If you would like to help
with this project, Click HERE.Find ArtsNFashion on FB and Twitter:
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