Hassan Blasim Explained

Hassan Blasim (born 1973) is an Iraqi-born film director and writer. He writes in Arabic. He is a citizen of Finland.^[1]

Blasim left Iraq in 2000 to escape persecution for his films,^[2] including The Wounded Camera, filmed in the Kurdish area in northern Iraq and about the forced migration of Kurds by Saddam Hussein's regime. After travelling in Europe for four years, he settled in Finland in 2004, where he was granted asylum.^[3] He made four short films for the Finnish broadcasting company Yle. His short story collection The Madman of Freedom Square was long-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2010.^[4] His book The Iraqi Christ, translated from Arabic to English by Jonathan Wright, was published by Comma Press in 2013. A selection of his stories was published as The Corpse Exhibition by Penguin US in 2014. It won a number of awards including one of four winners in the English Pen's Writers in Translation Programme Awards.^[5] In 2014, he became the first ever Arabic writer to win the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Iraqi Christ.^{[6] [7]}

Filmography

• The Wounded Camera
• Uneton, 2006^[8]
• Luottamuksen arvoinen, 2007
• Elämä nopea kuin nauru, 2007
• Juuret, 2008

Books

• Short Films (2005) collection of articles in: Cinema Booklets: Series of Publications for the Emirates Film Competition. Ed. S. Sarmini. Abu Dhabi: Emirates Cultural Foundation.
• Poetic Cinema (2006) collection of articles. Ed. Salah Sarmini, in: Cinema Booklets: Series of Publications for the Emirates Film Competition. Abu Dhabi: Emirates Cultural Foundation
• Diving into Existing (2007) correspondence and dairies in collaboration with Adnan al-Mubarak.
• Wounded Camera (2007) Writings on cinema.
• The Shia’s Poisoned Child (2008) story collection.
• Madman of Freedom Square (2009) Comma Press, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
• The Iraqi Christ (2013) Comma Press, short stories, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
• The Corpse Exhibition (2014) Penguin US, short stories, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
• Iraq +100 (2017) Tor Books, short story anthology (editor)
• God 99 (2019) novel, Comma Press, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright

External links

• Hassan Blasim's blog
• Madman of Freedom Square by Marianne Brace, The Independent
• http://www.booktrust.org.uk/prizes/7

Notes and References

1. Olli Löytty: Welcome to Finnish Literature! Hassan Blasim and the Politics of Belonging, University of Turku, accessdate 24 March 2019 p. 68
2. Web site: meet Europe's most exciting authors . Will . Forrester . 7 March 2020 . The Guardian . 29 November 2020.
3. Web site: Hassan Blasim internationales Literaturfestival Berlin . 29 November 2020.
4. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20121205155446/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/reading-all-over-the-world-the-longlist-for-this-years-independent-foreign-fiction-prize-spans-the-globe-1919979.html . 5 December 2012 . Reading all over the world: The long-list for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize spans the globe . . Boyd Tonkin . 12 March 2010 . March 7, 2014.
5. Web site: English PEN Announces the Winners of its Writers in Translation Programme Awards 2012 . English PEN . Emma Cleave . April 13, 2012 . May 23, 2014 . July 4, 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140704091510/http://www.englishpen.org/english-pen-announces-the-winners-of-its-writers-in-translation-programme-awards-2012/ . dead .
6. Web site: Iraq's 'Irvine Welsh' wins the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Iraqi Christ . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220509/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/iraqs-irvine-welsh-wins-the-independent-foreign-fiction-prize-for-the-iraqi-christ-9424520.html . 2022-05-09 . subscription . live . The Independent . Boyd Tonkin . 23 May 2014 . May 23, 2014.
7. Web site: Knausgaard heads Independent foreign fiction prize shortlist . The Guardian . Alison Flood . 8 April 2014 . April 10, 2014.
8. http://yle.fi/mundo/arkisto/indexbd68.php?basaari=121013957791fce602923d65e7099139ff3c0b17b0&article_id=807&__from_id__=518 Yle, Basaari