The Sirens of Baghdad

“Yasmina Khadra’s work has been compared to that of his Algerian compatriot Albert Camus, and The Sirens of Baghdad has a similar blaze of heat, the same heavy, insoluble questions and the same need to face them down, even to one’s death…The novel builds to a startling and wrenching finish.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Like all the great storytellers of history, Khadra espouses the contradictions of his characters, who carry in themselves the entirety of the human condition.” —Le Point (Paris)

“An astonishing novel with overtones of Camus…It’s simply admirable…a magisterial work of fiction.” —Lire (France)

“Couldn’t be more timely…[Khadra] manages to make the thoughts of a suicide bomber accessible to a Western readership, even as the scope of the terrorist’s intended target…will send a shiver down the spine of most readers…Khadra manages to inject a note of hope toward the end, without betraying his powerful message of how the occupation of Iraq has brutalized both the Iraqis and the Americans.” —Publishers Weekly

“With sincere-sounding feeling, Jason Collins delivers the story of a young man’s quest to repudiate his homeland, war-ravaged Iraq. Collins creates distinctive personas for the novel’s various male characters—in particular capturing the young protagonist’s anger with society as well as his turmoil at finding himself displaced in the world. Somber, with a slightly angry edge, the story builds as the quiet youth is urged by a radical group to make a difference. Collins delivers his lines in an increasingly clipped and hard-bitten tone as the plot escalates. With his masterful delivery Collins propels the listener through an intense story.” —AudioFile

“This is Khadra’s second novel about a phenomenon that mystifies so many Westerners—the educated, intelligent Arab terrorist…it dramatically embodies the points about cultural clash that Meic Pearse argues in Why the Rest Hate the West (2004). That is, it shows why crystal-clearly.” —Booklist