تنفتح رواية الكاتب العراقي سنان انطون «وحدها شجرة الرمان» (المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر) بسردية حكائية بسيطة تفاجئك احياناً بانعطافاتها إلى صور حلمية فنتازية، متقطّعة بحسب خطوات السيناريو السينمائي، على مشهديات الموت الذي يلتهم قلب بغداد المحتلة، والذي يظل ماثلاً امام ناظري جواد الذي يمتهن غسل الأموات وتكفينهم، بعد ان تعلّم أصول المهنة ومبادئها وأسرارها على يدي ابيه. وهي مهنة توارثتها العائلة منذ زمن بعيد. غسل الموتى هذا كان يجري قبل الاحتلال الأميركي للعراق على رسله وطبيعته المعتادة. وبوطأة الحرب الضروس، والاقتتال بين ابناء البلد الواحد جماعات وأفراداً، ازدادت وتيرة القتل ازدياداً ملحوظاً، واتخذ شكل الموت ضروباً مروعة من التمثيل بالجثث والتنكيل بها، طعناً وخنقاً وحرقاً وبقراً وتقطيعاً. وقد وصل الأمر بجواد انه تبلبل واحتار بكيفية غسل رأس مقطوع بلا جثة، وجسد قُطّع بمنشار كهربائي غسلاً طقوسياً يفترضه الشرع الإسلامي قبل الدفن.
Merciful heart:
Neutral texts, for loved ones, and as you read beyond all of this, contemplate yourself, contemplate what is around you, contemplate those you love, even from afar.
For everyone who has never known the path except through love... and yet they suffer
In the hope of obtaining a blessing for which he thanks God and calls it “the Most Merciful of the Heart.”
We are the generation of war, and our parents are the generation of defeat, and between them souls grew old, and the concepts of war and love became similar to them.
Things are too big to tell, but I believe that a story alone is capable of creating a small homeland that we carry in our pocket, and that we talk about to our children who were born outside the homeland, and who carried its mark on their faces, tongues, and identities without seeing a stone in it. Only a story is sufficient to create the imaginary homeland in their minds alive. .
This collection deals with stories from the lives of women who lived between two rivers. Between Syria and one of the asylum countries, it is concerned with the small details of these two lives, and the effects that the war had on the lives of these women: disappointment, loss, escape, and love.
It is an attempt to overcome the great scene of war, and the frost of the borders creeping as a river of ice between the shoulders, with small details, in which the voice rises and asks: “Yes, I lived between two rivers, but which of them lived in me?”
Khairy Al-Hallaq is a dangerous criminal sentenced to death. He spends the remainder of his life in prison waiting for the moment of execution of the sentence, and hides from everyone the secret that prompted him to commit his crime. A secret that might lighten his sentence, or save his life. When he enters the political prisoner ward, the criminal changes his convictions and reconsiders his life, thus dying a different person.
This “sermon” delves into the Turkish community of killers and criminals, to depict the prisoners’ diaries and their struggles in the cells, but it also carries a political and humanitarian dimension by criticizing the death penalty, and the societies’ attempt to purify themselves by choosing a scapegoat on whom to comment their crimes and corruption, and celebrate the joy of ending his life.
The sernama is usually a book that accurately describes a specific type of public celebration, but the sernama of Aziz Nessin conveys the facts and details of the execution of a “criminal” who lost his right to change.
