Books

»Abbas Khider is an incredibly sophisticated narrator.«  Hubert Spiegel  --- »A strong and moving text, an eye-opening book.«  Denis Scheck --- »Khider's artfully constructed novel is a literary and dramaturgical masterpiece.«  Margarete von Schwarzkopf

Despite of his innocence, which even the police admits,  Mahdi, a young Iraqi boy, spent two years in prison during Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The novel is about the infernal daily routine in captivity, but also about Mahdi’s former life as a pigeon fancier and zealous reader at a time when the future still seemed wide open to him. 

In 1991, Mahdi is freed from prison by partisans, but his country is no longer what it used to be – he decides to flee.

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»What a deeply sad book – yet every single page makes the reader happy.«  Renée Zucker --- »The author is a master of grotesque satire, navigating elegantly between laughter and tears.«  Evi Chatzi --- »"Der falsche Inder" is a novel, fairy story, tale from 1001 Nights, short story and autobiography all in one.« Jörg Plath

The narrator in Der falsche Inder comes across a script in Arabic language while he travels from Munich to Berlin. Miraculously it tells his very own story even though the main character has another name. 

Rasul Hamid, the protagonist, describes in eight different ways how he fled his homecountry Iraq and tries to live as a refugee. He strays between Northern Africa and Europe, but he never feels anywhere at home again.

The voices and fates in this debut novel tell a realistic fairy tale. Abbas Khider combines the tragic with a laugh, the grotesque with ordinary life. This novel is the story of his life and impresses by its unadorned point of view and his en-passant-way of narrating the misery.