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!