Raincoast Books
Available: 04/20/05
5 1/2 x 8 1/2 · 208 pages
978-1-55192-799-2
CDN $22.95 · pb

Canadian Title

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Farewell, Babylon

Coming of Age in Jewish Baghdad

Naim Kattan

translated from the French by Sheila Fischman

A classic memoir about growing up in Baghdad in the 1940s, by a grand old man of Canadian letters.

Here is the exotic world of one of the East’s ancient cities, where Naim Kattan was born into the heart of its then teeming Jewish community. In this evocative memoir, a young boy comes of age, discovering work, literature, patriotism, racism—and women and love. Farewell, Babylon is a story of roots and anguished exile, of thirst for life and life’s experiences. Above all it is a memoir of a lost world, a magical city in which Iraq’s Kurds, Bedouins, Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in a rough sort of harmony.

“A wonderful memoir. It evokes a time and place which to us, today, is as strange and exotic as the world of the Thousand and One Nights. And yet it is moving, true and universal in its implications. It belongs on that small shelf of books which bear witness and, by doing so, become part of the literature of our times.” —Brian Moore

“In all respects, a most moving and haunting work.” —Montreal Star

Naim Kattan was born in Baghdad in 1928 and has lived in Montreal since 1954. He has written 32 books of poetry, essays and fiction. His work has been translated widely, and he has received many honours, including the France-Canada Prize and France’s prestigious Légion d’Honneur. Kattan was head of the Writing and Publication Section of the Canada Council for 25 years. Sheila Fischman is one of Canada’s foremost translators and has won many prizes, including the Governor General’s Award.