Iraqi playwright and scientist Hassan Abdulrazzak will talk about science fiction in Arabic literature at the Science Museum in London this week.

Mr. Abdulrazzak will present his short science fiction story, based on an alien invasion of Baghdad. “I grew up watching alien-invasion films but they always go to America first. So my aliens go to Baghdad,” he told The National.

His first play Baghdad Wedding (2007), a comedy about an Iraqi wedding, won many awards after its London debut.

The event, which brings a number of speakers working within Arabic literature and science fiction, is organised by Sinbad Sci-Fi, a discussion panel for science fiction in Contemporary Arabic literature.

It also coincides with a call for submissions by Comma Press, who are looking for short stories by Iraqi writers, imagining Iraq in 100 years. The anthology, Iraq + 100 will be edited by award winning Iraqi writer, Hassan Blasim.

Among Iraqi writers and storytellers, science fiction is not the first thing that springs to mind, but the genre is nonetheless present.

Achmed Khammas, a well-known Iraqi-German writer and scientist, has made original contributions to the use of Islam in science fiction for over thirty years. His Orwellian short story, Dreams (1989, Heyne Verlag) is set in a “post-oil-era” where the governing powers, the “Pan-Islamic Parliament”, are at war with the “American” and “Russian Satan”.

Though it looks towards the future, science fiction is often a way of describing the present. Dreams reflects the Cold War era, which had profound impacts both in Germany, Iraq and Damascus, Syria, where the writer grew up. Written in the late 1980s, this was also a time where the Soviet Union, and the world order that shaped Khammas’ world since birth, were on the brink of collapse, and the brutality of Ba’ath regimes in Syria and Iraq were now well known.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, a number of writers and filmmakers that RUYA is in contact with use science fiction and fantasy genres, the most famous being Ahmed Saadawi, who’s book Frankenstein in Baghdad, won the international prize for Arabic fiction in 2013. Here, a Frankenstein figure, built on the limbs of corpses lying around Baghdad, roams the city seeking revenge on those that killed the people that form his body.

The young, Baghdad-based digital animator, Ahmed al Hashimi, created the mock ups of a virtual, futuristic Baghdad for an independent television series. Though the city is set in the future, the story and characters were modelled on myths from ancient Iraqi civilisations. “I don’t know why young Iraqi artists don’t use this heritage more,” says al Hashimi, “I wanted to contrast the reality in Iraq today, to its great ancient past. I used a futuristic setting and black humour to follow the daily lives of a regular Iraqi family and their friends”.

The aim of this show was to “give audiences some subliminal means of humanity, nobility, patriotism and other values which our society has lost,” al Hashimi explains.
Due to time constraints and lack of funds, the series was never produced, but the artist sent RUYA some initial digital sketches, below:

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Images courtesy of the artist.

Wonder and magic are key to the most famous text in Arabic literature, The Arabian Nights. It is surprising, therefore, that science fiction and fantasy genres in contemporary Arabic and Iraqi literature are not part of the mainstream.

Iraqi author Hassan Blasim notes this in The Iraqi Christ, a series of short stories which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize this year. Here, one of the characters wonders why there is no fantasy fiction in Arabic Literature. When asked about this, Mr. Blasim told RUYA:

“Arabic literature lacks genres, and I am critical of this. It has no variety like Western literature. We do not have fantasy, surreal or war literature. Our only discourse is reality”.

This may be something to do with the current political climate. Mr. Blasim explains that commissioning writers for Iraq + 100 was not easy : “The writers are surprised and ask, why Iraq in 100 years? For them, picturing Iraq in 100 years means finding solutions for the country”.

Sindbad Sci-fi is on 15 November 2014 at the Science Museum, London, 7.30 pm. RUYA is donating a copy of Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad at the event.

Comma Press and Hassan Blasim are looking for new short stories set in Iraq, by Iraqi writers, imagining Iraq in 100 years. The deadline for submissions is 21 November 2014. More details on their website.