Quotes from Hassan Blasim

Knowledge and imagination are the life buoy and the extra lung for breathing outside the walls of a tainted reality.

I studied at the Academy during the years of economic sanctions. Life was almost dead because the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the civilized world were so strict.

I'm talking about the essence of humanity. Hope is mixed into the blood of every human being, everywhere and in every time.

In fact I didn't think about fear much at the time. I felt angry about everything that was happening around me: the violence of the dictatorship and the violence of society.

Losing hope means ceasing to love my son and my girlfriend and many friends and people around the world.

We in Iraq have not descended from another planet. Just as people in many other countries have gotten over the tragedy of war, Iraq will get over its ordeal.

The Iran-Iraq war began the same year that I went to primary school, at the age of six.

I'm not much interested in prizes, whether from the Arab world or from the Western world. Writing is a very difficult process and I want to continue my work.

I didn't start publishing literary texts until I had left Iraq. At the Academy [of Cinematic Arts] I was busy with short films.

One of the Baathists once told me, "If you're not careful, I'll have you put away," and those words meant death.