Zabibah and the King by Saddam Hussein
As soon as we knew this book existed, we knew we had to cover it. We had no choice. This is one of those books that was impossible to turn down. I mean, look at the cover. Who could possibly think that Saddam’s face was the best way to market a romance novel? And not only that, but why did they use a picture of him that looks as if he was just dragged out of his spider-hole by the invading American forces? It’s a cover that insists, no, demands that we read it.
Unfortunately, this is probably one of those cases where we do what we should never do: judge a book by its cover. Because whereas the cover is dynamite, the book is more like a roadside bomb. On the face of it, “Zabiba And the King,” is an allegorical love story between a mighty king (a stand in for Saddam) and a simple, yet beautiful commoner named Zabiba (a stand in for the Iraqi people). Yes, that’s right. The romance is between Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq. Which I suppose means that Saddam implicitly wants to make sweet love to the common folk of his nation? I know they say dictators fuck their people, but this is not exactly what I thought they meant. And it’s not the nice kind of fucking. As Mona Kareem wrote in her article for the LA Review of Books, Saddam’s writing is full of nothing but “rape metaphors and ancient kingdoms.”
So let’s lay out the plot, starting with the ancient kingdom in which the story takes place. Picture the scene; its 600 AD and we’re in a dusty an unnamed country (until later in the book when Saddam forgets that the country is unnamed and just starts referring to it as Iraq). King Arab (yes that is his actual name) rules over the land. One day when he is out riding, he notices a grand palace right next to his that for some reason he never noticed before. He approaches it and finds that it is the domain of an unsightly and uncouth man named Hiskil, who lacks morals and brags about his wealth. He is a foreigner, who insists on using his power to influence and exploit the other kingdoms. He is friends with many pimps. He hosts orgies. He plays games where he and his international band of pimps roam the land and rape who they want.
Outside of the palace is a shitty mud hut, in which the King finds Zabiba; Hiskil’s wife. A beautiful commoner whom he instantly falls in love with.
He invites her to the palace, and since he’s the king, she does it. The next 100 pages or so are a series of excruciatingly dull dialogues between the two, where there is no romantic poetry or pitching of woo or flirting. Instead, they have a Socratic dialogue about politics.
They eat. They drink. They kiss. They discuss the bureaucratic structure of representative councils able to act as forums for discussing the minutiae of municipal politics and developing developmental policies to strengthen the economic agenda of the state. You know, romance.
But something is rotten in the Kingdom of Iraq. Uncle Sam, I mean, Hiskil can’t stand that Zabiba and the King are developing democracy and falling in love. So, he sets up a plan. Him and three of his bodies ambush Zabiba in the forest, and he brutally rapes her. She realizes later that the attacker was her husband, though for some reason stops the King from arresting Hiskil.
Hiskil and his allies (who are Jewish by the way) use this as an opportunity to launch an attack on the king. They try to assassinate him, but Zabiba jumps in the way. The King and the people are so outraged that they kill Hiskil, throw garbage at his corpse, and chase all of the Jews out of the country.
It’s absurd. It’s a bit boring. It’s very rapey and racist. But did Saddam actually write it?
It seems that he actually did. Although published anonymously in Iraq in 2000, it was made required reading in Iraqi schools. Millions of copies were printed. And it was common knowledge that Saddam was associated with it. Perhaps the best proof of Saddam’s authorship over this book is that surely no dictator would let such a piece of shit be widely associated with his name otherwise. It’s not the only book he wrote; he is known to have authored at least three more.
And thank God we didn’t read those ones, they’re 800 pages long, and this one was bad enough to get through at 200 pages. At the end of the day, it looks like we’ve learned the hard way that the correct number of books by Saddam Hussein that you should read is zero.
Review by u/beaudashington
