My Father's Rifle: A Childhood in Kurdistan FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
A child of the '60s and '70s, Saleem grew up in Kurdistan, and in this slender volume he has painted a vivid portrait of his childhood, one that takes readers beyond politics and statistics to the heart of a compelling people and one young boy.
Readers follow young Azad's journey from boyhood to manhood under the looming presence of Saddam Hussein. Even before Azad begins to attend school, he has lived through bombings, persecution, and starvation. He witnesses the assassinations of friends and relatives, and his family suffers the indignation of life in a refugee camp. Yet, in the face of terrible suffering, Azad has an irrepressible joy.
Betrayed and abandoned by their allies, the Kurdish people are in despair. Like Azad's father's precious rifle -- once the most potent symbol of liberty -- their hopes and dreams are now rusted and obsolete. Azad briefly flees to the mountains to join his brother in the fight for Kurdish freedom, but his efforts are useless. He returns home, determined to find a new way to fight for liberty, even if it means abandoning everything he loves.
For readers spellbound by The Kite Runner, Saleem's sparely written memoir is a worthy successor, a poignant coming-of-age story told by a child that is understated and disarmingly gentle. In its own way, Saleem's tale is a weapon as powerful as any rifle. (Spring 2005 Selection)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"This narrative tells of the life of a boy named Azad - in fact the author - as he grows to manhood in Iraq during the 1960s and '70s. Azad is born into a vibrant village culture, to a family proud of its Kurdish past and hopeful for a free Kurdish future. He loves his mother's orchard, his cousin's stunt pigeons, his father's old Czech rifle, and his brother who is fighting in the mountains. But before he is even old enough for school, Azad has experienced strafing and bombing, watched as friends and neighbors were assassinated, and seen his father humiliated while trying to feed his starving family. Azad's people are forced into a refugee camp in Iran, where they must stay for years, and return home to discover that Saddam Hussein's regime is destroying the autonomy it had promised the Kurds. In a burst of adolescent impatience, Azad briefly runs off to the mountains to fight for Kurdish liberty, like his brother." As Azad matures, he senses that he must find his own way to advance the Kurdish cause. He has also discovered art - drawings, poetry, film - and My Father's Rifle ends with his heartbreaking decision to forsake his parents and flee across the Syrian border to freedom and to life as an artist. Hiner Saleem's memoir is a portrait of a boy who embraces the land and culture he loves even as he leaves them.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New Yorker
Saleem, the son of a Kurdish guerrilla, narrates his harrowing memoir of his family’s experiences in Iraq during the nineteen-sixties and seventies from the naïve perspective of his childhood self. At one point, the family, demoralized by the murder of relatives and the destruction of their home by collaborators, flee to Iran. Later, faced with a choice between repatriation or extermination, they return and are officially labelled aïdoun—meaning “fallen back into line.” At school, Saleem attends classes taught in a language he doesn’t understand (Arabic) and witnesses his young niece die when a doctor refuses to treat a “terrorist’s daughter.” At eighteen, Saleem concludes that war will never advance the Kurdish cause, and he leaves his family and the country he loves.
Publishers Weekly
Using a child's unsparing, detailed eye, this boyhood chronicle of life in embattled 1960s and '70s Kurdistan portrays a time of soaring nationalist pride, family tragedy and government betrayal. With stirring lyricism, Saleem writes of his oppressed Iraqi homeland, his mother's fruit-laden orchard, his cousin's stunt pigeons, his father's ancient Czech rifle and his own place in a unified village community where every man would fight for the Kurdish way of life. Saleem and his family join those Kurds who, leery of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party's promises of peace, flee to the mountains, where they put up fierce resistance and are finally forced across the Iranian border into refugee camps. After the Iraqi government eventually prompts the Kurds to return to their villages, Hussein then moves hundreds of Arabs to their territories to establish homes and businesses, transforming much of Kurdistan into a haven for true believers in the Baath Party, although the Kurdish peshmerga (volunteer fighters) continue to battle for their homeland. Saleem's family goes home, but the Baath pressure forces the author and his brothers to settle in Europe; his sister remains in a concentration camp (and thus is not able to attend their father's funeral). Saleem, who's now a filmmaker in Paris, offers a haunting, sympathetic account of a young life amid the horrors of a war zone. (Jan.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Well-done but dispiriting memoir of growing up in Iraq during the 1960s and '70s, when Kurdish aspirations for independence were increasingly suppressed. Now a filmmaker living in Paris, Saleem memorably depicts the close family ties and the comfort of Kurdish culture. His story also grimly reminds us of the Kurds' long-time persecution by Turks, Iranians, and, most recently, Saddam Hussein. Perhaps understandably, considering how badly they have been treated, the Kurds too have contemplated violent solutions to their problem. Saleem's father, who kept a rifle on hand, supported General Barzani, a Kurdish military leader who led a group of armed guerrillas into the mountains in hopes of establishing an independent state. His older brother, 18-year-old Dilovan, joined them, and later, when the Baathist party took over Iraq and bombed their village, adolescent Saleem also wanted to work for the cause of independence. At one point the family fled to the mountains to fight with Kurdish troops, but the resistance was forcibly quashed. After a dreary spell in a refugee camp, they decided to return to their native village of Aqra. Under Saddam's leadership in the late 1970s, Iraqis increased their efforts to eliminate the Kurds. In measured prose, Saleem recalls soldiers arriving in their village and setting up barracks, where they were rumored to torture Kurds. Baathist teachers took over the schools, and Iraqi doctors would not help his sick niece, who eventually died. His education was cut short: instruction at school was only in Arabic, a language he did not know, and opportunities for further study were denied to Kurds. Saleem knew there was no way he could go to film school. Increasinglyhe began to accept that exile might be his only option, though even that would not be easy, since Kurds were denied passports. Timely-and most depressing.
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