living a life of Iraqi through eyes of 'Mayada'

Book: Mayada

Author: Jean Sasson

Published by: Bantam Books

Pages: 416

Price: £7.99

Mayada is a story of a women, mother to two children; “Fay” and “Ali”, who belongs to a highly educated and sophisticated family in Iraq. The story takes the reader to a dark corner of life of Mayada on the day, when Mayada is taken by Saddam’s Secret police office, to Baladiyat Prison. Without even saying goodbye to her children, she is dragged away without seeing or saying goodbye to her children for the last time. She cries and begs hoping that at least the news of her arrest reaches her home and her mother Salwa, who had known almost everyone in Iraq of consequence.

She shares the cell No. 52 in Baladiyat with other 17 shadow women who are well educated and professionals as Mayada, all dragged into notorious Baladiyat Prison Tortured in inhuman manner and heartlessly without any explanation or possibility of trial.

There they spend their nights and days, sharing their stories, healing each other’s wounds that lie on their flesh and also not forgetting those that lie deep in their hearts because of the detachment from their loved ones.

The book shows the readers how no one was safe in Iraq through the eyes of Mayada. Not in the streets and not inside their homes. Neither on one’s father’s shoulders nor in his/her mother’s lap. A man could be taken in the middle of the night, sometimes along with the family, without giving a reason or any explanation to the people, and put in the jail, tortured and executed. No one would figure out this vicious structure that Saddam had created until one had experienced it for her/himself. 

Saddam had decorated the blood and the corpses with beautiful flowers and had presented it to the Iraqi people as a beautiful garden of developing Iraq, people who were unaware of the fact that they unheeded the bleeding freedom, and that they were free to roam in the garden just until the time, when the wind blew against them.

 Personally, I would rate this book as 3.75 out of 5. Suggestion: You should read!

Fate of Shadow Women

Samara, another poor women in cell facing imprisonment and torture without any trial shares a poem with the other shadow women ( what they called themselves) ; a poem "that had been etched on the wall by a suffering and dying women". 

“They took me away from my home

They slapped me when I cried out for my children

They imprisoned me

They accused me of crimes I had never committed

They interrogated me with their harsh accusations

They tortured me with their cruel hands

They stubbed cigarettes on my flesh

They cut out my tongue

They raped me

They cut off my breasts

I wept alone, in pain and in fear

They sentenced me to die

They staked me on the wall

I begged for mercy

They shot me between my eyes.

They dumped my body in a shallow grave

They buried me without a shroud

After my death, they discovered I was innocent.”

The Poem is an extract book 'Mayada' written by author Jean Sasson and by Bantam Books