Abbas Khadir

Khadir was born in Baghdad in 1973, and is brother to eight siblings. He was born to illiterate parents who sold dates for a living.[2]

By the age of 14, Khadir started reading religious books, which was the only genre his house homed. He discovered his love for literature through these religious texts, seeing that it is often figurative in nature. This helped facilitate his reading and understanding of poetry. He found refuge in reading, and it opened doors to rediscovering the world. Through his readings, he travelled to Germany with Franz Kafka, to Russia with Alexander Pushkin, and to France with Charles Baudelaire. Despite being educated, none of Khadir's siblings grew an interest in literature, except for his sisters and the literary critic, Saleh Zamel, who was also a spouse to one of his sisters. Khadir spent most of his time reading in Zamel's library, and it is through which Khadir discovered many new writers with whom he, later, met personally. It is his love for reading and the inspiration by the works of different authors that generated his desire to write.[3]

During his stay in Germany, Khadir gained the necessary qualifications in order to get admitted to university. In five years’ time, he successfully completed studying in three different educational institutions: an Arabic school, an online school, and a college-preparatory school. He then enrolled in University of Munich and University of Potsdam, where he studied literature and philosophy, respectively.[2][4]

Before arriving at Germany, Khadir made his living off temporary jobs.[2] Upon being granted asylum in Germany, he started his writing profession. In addition to the monetary and institutional support, Khadir was awarded literary prizes and scholarships, which expanded his audience.[5]

In 2014, and in cooperation with a number of writers, Khadir organized “Cairo Short Stories” writers’ workshop for outstanding young writers at the Goethe-Institut Ägypten.[5] Out of the 108 participants who submitted their short stories, eleven candidates were shortlisted, and three won.[6] The goal of the workshop was to assist the candidates in their development process as writers by giving them tips and pieces of advice. In return, Khadir and the other writers will get to learn about the candidates’ experience as writers influenced by the German and Arab cultures.[3]

In 2017, which was the same year he was nominated for the Mainzer Stadtschreiber literary award, Khadir completed two additional manuscripts, one of which was a humorous exploration of the German language, and the other a novel.[1]

Khadir is currently hosting a number of reading projects in European and non-European countries. He, too, wishes to have his German novels translated, and to work on publishing more books.[3]

During his high school years, Khadir got involved with unauthorized personnels, and engaged in political activities that opposed the regime of Saddam Hussein, who was the dictator of Iraq at the time. He sold books that were banned by the government, to which he attached leaflets containing his own writings. Consequently, he was arrested and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, namely from the year 1993 to 1995. In 1996, he fled to Jordan, and later moved to a number of Mediterranean countries, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Turkey, Greece and Italy, in which he resided as an undocumented refugee and lived off temporary job posts. In 2000, he was arrested upon his arrival to Germany by a Bavarian border police officer, and, as per the German asylum law in effect at the time, was prohibited from leaving the country.[2]

Most of Khadir's writings were based on personal experiences and the experiences of those whom he encountered in life. He gave refugees in Germany a literary voice, and the account of a refugee life in his novels were more than just a naturalistic depiction. His novels explored the gendered nature of power systems, the Kafkaesque dynamics of bureaucracy and the Gambian notion of the refugee as the ultimate biopolitical subject. Khadir's originality was reflected in his form and content, and he manifested concepts, such as self-protection and resistance, in a humorous tone. This drove German critics to describe Khadir as a writer who committed to narrating stories about outcasts.[1][5]

For instance, in his second novel, The President's Oranges, Khadir describes prisons in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule. As for his third novel, Letter to the Aubergine Republic, he narrates the journey of a love letter sent by an exiled Salim in Libya to his beloved Samia in Iraq.[7] Khadir cleverly used the Aubergine Republic to refer to Iraq at a time the eggplant was the most prevalent food item in the country.[5]