The Last Pomegranate Tree

Praise

“A tour de force . . . The urban scenes contribute to the author’s in-the-round portrait of his homeland, showing us more than bunkers and bomb craters, suggesting fertility and possibility . . . Isn’t it a fine novel that sustains such counterpoint? Alive with the tension between humanity and hatred?”
–John Domini, Brooklyn Rail

“Superbly realized novel of life, death, and what lies between . . . Blending magical realism with dark fables worthy of Kafka, Kurdish novelist Ali spins episodes that require the willing suspension of disbelief while richly rewarding that surrender . . . Altogether extraordinary: a masterwork of modern Middle Eastern literature deserving the widest possible audience.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Kaleidoscopic and mesmerizing . . . Ali’s novel is a visionary wonder that plunges into the dreamscape of a people’s fraught memory. For readers, this is unforgettable.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A lot of contemporary American fiction is stuck in this . . . false dichotomy between “auto-fiction” and “social realism” and it was really nice to read Ali who comes in like a graceful bull in a china shop, telling a heart-breaking, gut-wrenching story.”
–William Lennon, publisher, Cleveland Review of Books

“Bachtyar Ali’s skillful, seamless movement between history and mythologies is unique in its political engagement and cultural depths. A major writer of our time.”
–Rawi Hage, author of Stray Dogs

“After spending his years in prison trying to forget — “all my memories turned to sand” —Muzafar is released from his desert confinement and immediately tries to locate his son. It is this persistent search for truth that lies at the heart of The Last Pomegranate Tree . . . Ali shows his readers that while truth at first seems a monolith, a different perspective can reveal a new aspect, a new verity, equally as valid as the first.”
–Andrea Blatz, Asymptote Journal

Another superb novel from Bachtyar Ali, mixing reality, and a very unpleasant reality at that, with myth and fantasy, while telling a complex and first-class story which illuminates the problems that the Iraqi Kurds have lived through. There is no doubt that Bachtyar Ali should be better known in the West.
—The Modern Novel