Costa Book Awards 2006 Judges' comment: "After the most dramatic opening of any of the books on the shortlist, Nabeel's Song evokes the lost world of Iraq before Saddam, as well as the terrors that ensued. This beautifully-written book reminds us that poetry is stronger than tyranny."
Presents the true story of one family's experience of life before, during and after the regime of Saddam Hussein. Nabeel Yasin showed a gift for poetry and became famous for it. But by the end of the 1970s, Saddam's rise to power was encroaching on his life, and that of his family. He was denounced as an enemy of the state and fled Iraq in 1980.
Jo Tatchell is a journalist who has spent many years in the Middle East. She writes on Middle Eastern culture for UK and US media including the Guardian and Prospect magazine.
