An Iraqi in Paris

A fully revised third edition in translation of this best-selling ''gem of autobiographical writing'' in the Arab world, by an author who has been called ''a relentless raconteur'', ''a modern Odysseus'', ''the Iraqi Don Quixote''. Providentially leaving Iraq just before Saddam Hussein installs himself as President, the Assyrian narrator of An Iraqi in Paris dreams of becoming a Hollywood film-maker after his hero John Ford, but after arrest and torture in Syria - accused of being a Jewish spy on account of his name, similar treatment in Jordan, and escaping execution in Lebanon by armed militia, he eventually lands up on the streets of Paris, where he meets up with Jean Valjean and tries to escape his fate as a homeless refugee with wit, humour and amorous adventures, all the while writing the story of his childhood, his deaf-mute father Kika, and film buff Kiryakos. After all his experiences, Samuel Shimon, ''the runaway from museums'', writes an urgently needed and timely ''manifesto of tolerance''. Translated from the Arabic by Christina Phillips and Piers Amodia with the author.