Saddam Hussein's novels

Saddam Hussein, the late President of Iraq, wrote four novels and a number of poems. The first two books (Zabibah and the King and The Fortified Castle) were "Written by He Who Wrote It", a traditional way in Arabic writing to preserve anonymity.

Zabibah and the King (Arabic: زبيبة والملك‎‎ Zabībah wal-Malik), written in 2000, is a novel that the CIA believes was written by Saddam Hussein, probably with the help of some ghostwriters. The plot is a love story about a powerful ruler of medieval Iraq and a beautiful commoner girl named Zabibah. Zabibah's husband is a cruel and unloving man who rapes her. The book is set in 7th or 8th century Tikrit, Hussein's home town. The book was believed to be the subject of a Hollywood adaptation starring Sacha Baron Cohen. However, this turned out not to be true.

The Fortified Castle (Arabic: القلعة الحصينة‎‎ al-Qala'ah al-Haṣīnah) is a 713-page novel published in 2001. It is another allegorical work. It concerns the delayed wedding of the Iraqi hero, who fought in the war against Iran, to a Kurdish girl.

There are three characters: the two brothers Sabah and Mahmud, from a rural area on the west bank of the Tigris River who come from a farming family, and a young woman, Shatrin, from Suleimaniya. They all go to the same university in Baghdad.

Sabah is a war hero from the days of the Battle of New Qadisiyya (Iran-Iraq war), during which he was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner of war in Iran, from which he finally manages to escape with a few friends.

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