Cultural and literary circles in Iraq recall the passing year of the passing away of the citizen, novelist and translator Nazareth Al-Saadoun, who provided the Iraqi and Arab library with its rich intellectual product.
After a tender life that ended her far from her country, she died on April 24, 2020, in the Jordanian capital, Amman, at the age of 74, after a struggle with illness.
Its beginnings
Al-Saadoun was born in Wasit Governorate, southern Iraq in June 1946, and she is the eldest daughter of Abdul Aziz Shibli Al-Saadoun from the sheikhs of the clan known for his patriotism, and he is one of the Free Officers (who participated in the May 1941 Movement, with Rashid Ali Al-Kilani against the British occupation), according to her sister Yusra Sadoon.
Yusra added to Al-Jazeera Net that in that atmosphere, where the originality, values and ethics of the countryside prevailed at the time, Nazareth was born during the harvest days in the village house surrounded by orchards overlooking the Al-Gharraf River, and she learned in nuns schools, mastered French and English, and obtained a university degree from the University of Baghdad in economics Politician.
She indicates that she was accompanying her father on his travels, attending his councils, and listening to political discussions and literary dialogues, being the eldest daughter. She lived through the reality imposed by the circumstances after July 14, 1958, and was drawn to the ideologies and revolutionary thought that prevailed during the sixties of the last century. The upbringing has a clear effect on her writings, belonging to the land, the love of Baghdad and the Tigris River, and the ethics and authenticity of the civilized countryside.
An early craving
And about her beginnings with literature, she is old - according to her sister - since she learned the alphabet, she became an avid reader, when she was in the interior section of the nuns school in Baghdad, and the light was turned off at a specific hour and she wanted to read a book, so she used the lamp under the cover and read without knowledge The supervisor.
Yousra talks about her late sister's passion for the novel, saying, "She loved the storyteller, gathering her sisters and friends and telling them stories from her imagination or a novel she read in an interesting style, and she was Shahrazadna."
At one point in her life, she decided that the time had come for her to give instead of consuming literature, so it was her first novel, "If the Blessings Lasted", in which she tells of her love for Baghdad, its alleys, and its nostalgic airspace.
Al-Saadoun, in her novel "If the Blinds Last", talks about her love for Baghdad, its alleys, and its airspace (Al-Jazeera Net)
Positions and Activities
Al-Saadoun occupied several positions and participated in research and studies in the fields of economics, technology transfer, the environment and others, according to her sister Yusra.
It is mentioned that she held the position of Director General of the Economic Department of the Arab Industries Organization (1979-1984), Director General of the Books and Documents Department in the Iraqi Ministry of Culture and Information (1997-1998), Editor-in-Chief of the Baghdad Observer magazine published in the English language (1998-2003), and a founding member. For the Iraqi Women Forum, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Syrian Arab International University in 2005, and an editorial member of the Journal of the Arab Industries Organization (1980-1984).
She pointed out that the late one was the screaming voice calling for the siege on Iraq to be lifted at international conferences, and the peace ship carrying food and medicine to break the blockade participated in the 1990s, as the Marines who intercepted the ship at sea and attacked its unarmed passengers, the share of Nazareth was half lost. He heard it after an American soldier had hit her.
Al-Mukhtar: Nazareth was the homeland with what it stored in her consciousness and conscience (Al-Jazeera Net)
Her novels and writings
Six novels have been published for the period, which are (If Long Is Al-Afia, Memory of the Circles, Unarmed Ibn Khaldun Fighting in the Mother of Battles, Broken Dreams, I Loved You, a Spiral of Departure) and has translated more than 18 books, in addition to writing dozens of articles and books in various fields.
Salah Al-Mukhtar, one of the writers close to her, believes that her first novel, "If Al-Mufia" lasted) was the most famous, and it was in a new style of revelation for the love of the holy place, and Baghdad was the sacred. And sitting in a place near Scheherazade as she tells her vibrant tales of people and vivid symbols that make you enter with Nazareth in the details of Baghdad and spray her pink waterfalls.
He adds to Al-Jazeera Net that Nazareth was the homeland with what it stored in its consciousness and conscience about it, and even though it seemed not involved in politics and identified with literature, thought, languages and world culture, it was intended to be a bearer of anointing with which to unearth the treasures of consciousness, and illuminate the way to form a deeper and wider awareness, through its translations And her other novels and books.
In the field of translation, Al-Mukhtar states that she translated many books and novels of various disciplines to confirm that the paths of her consciousness cover all areas of life.
Among the most important of what was translated, according to the Mukhtar, is the book "Beware the Media" by Michel Colon, which reveals the subversive role of the Western media, and was translated at the height of the Iraq struggle against the comprehensive siege in the 1990s, and "Flowers of the Galilee" by the Russian-Israeli journalist Israel Shamir, and "History The Jews and their religion "belongs to Israel, Shahak, the anti-Zionist Israeli writer.
He goes on to say: Nazareth not only made political translations to develop national consciousness, but entered the arena of psychology in order to shed light on the mysteries of the human being, his complexes and his secret motives, so she translated "Memories of Dreams and Meditations" by Carl Gustav Young, and "The Known World" by Edward B.
Jones.
She also entered the field of global strategies, translating "Francois Mitterrand's indictment" by Michel Andre, "America between right and wrong" by Anatole Levin, and dozens of other novels translated from French, pointing out by saying, "Nazareth presented us with a comprehensive approach that nourishes the soul and develops a holistic awareness of life and its constituents." .
Al-Mousawi believes that the novels of the late Nazareth Al-Saadoun did not reveal all of their contents (Al-Jazeera Net)
Delicate feelings
For her part, her colleague, the poet and writer Sajida Al-Mousawi, says, "Nazareth Al-Saadoun is a radiant human being, sensitive to feelings. When she approaches her, she feels as if she is one of the queens of Sumer, who is manifested by elevation, dignity and the strength of the soul."
In her interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Mousawi expresses her belief that the late novels did not reveal all their hidden contents, and were flirting with feelings at times, and at times embody the prevailing and inherited social concepts, even if they touched or annoyed their heroes or heroines, they pounced on them like a falcon in indirect but influential criticism.
She narrates how she lived with her the emergence of her latest novel, "The Vortex of Departure," which won the Qatari Katara Prize in 2015, when she called her from Qatar to preach it. Alienation and the loss of loved ones and the homeland, according to the expression of Al-Mousawi.
The fight considered that Al-Saadoun had lived a period of trauma like many Iraqis who were forced to leave their country (Al-Jazeera Net)
Bitterness of alienation
Al-Mukhtar describes the novel “The Departure Spiral” as a flash of love for Baghdad and a cry of pain from the cruelty of alienation, in which it dealt with forced migration after the US invasion and the transformation of Baghdad into a human slaughterhouse that has no parallel in the history of Iraq.
In turn, the poet Makki al-Nazzal, who directed the signing ceremony for the novel "The Vortex of Departure", says: Nazareth Al-Saadoun found her opportunity to fight to reach what she had achieved, and she reached high ranks in the job, and became a general manager, then suddenly - like other Iraqis - she lost everything but her knowledge. And its manners.
He added to Al-Jazeera Net that the late woman took what was inside her of knowledge, literature, culture, and a biography full of translations, literary works, and administration, and went out to find herself less than a refugee, and the trauma lived at first like the rest of the Iraqis who had to leave, then after that she began to adapt and try to revive her activity.
Al-Nazzal indicates that he met her in Jordan and nominated her to the Iraqi Cultural House there, and she became a colleague, and no position appeared from her except for her original position with Iraq until the last days of her life.
Supporting women
Nazareth Al-Saadoun is considered one of the most prominent defenders of women's rights, as she is the daughter of Iraq and belongs to the humanitarian principle that made her allocate what is needed to defend women, says writer and poet Alaa Tawfiq.
She added to Al-Jazeera Net that in the novel “I loved you, a spectrum” she talked about the struggle of women to defend their gains and their right to culture and science, and she used some of her novels to emphasize women's rights, and she wove her strings in this novel, so Nadia, the protagonist of the novel, was more like a quiet, strange colorful mosaic nearby. Carefree and perhaps excels in what purifies her soul.
Tawfiq asserts that the late achievements of the Iraqi woman proved the ability of the Iraqi woman to succeed, when she succeeded in communicating the suffering of women with credibility and accompanied by accuracy, so she used to hold a scalpel to make wounds, and then sew them in an attempt to give her heroines strength, and thus give the confrontation strength to the Iraqi woman.
She concludes by saying: She may have departed from us in the body, but her generosity has not ended, for it is alive and remains, and her bright face still shines upon us whenever we scroll through her papers that her handwriting takes care of her.