May the Tigris Grieve for You

This short, devastating novella unfolds in the voices of the members of an Iraqi family at the time of the Iraq War, is a painfully personal and coldly beautiful telling of the intimate tragedy of an honour killing. The principal narrator is a young unmarried woman who realises that she is pregnant. She knows this means she will be killed by her elder brother when he returns home that evening. As the day inches towards its inevitable dnouement, the story of the family unfolds, through vignettes in the voice of each family member: a delicate courtship, snatched moments, reticence and frustration all offering the sensation of what it is to be female or male in this stifling world.