For two decades, since the Iraq-Iran war in 1980, Iraq has been the focus of numerous political, economic, sociological, military, and geopolitical studies. However, very little has been published on the Iraqi literary tradition. Modern Iraq has produced a highly complex literature of survival in response to various realities of oppression and to challenges of modernism.

Translators include Naomi Shibab Nye, Ellen Dore Watson, Daniel Weissbort, and Ferial Ghazoul.

Dr. Saadi Simawe guest-edited the pioneering Palestine/Israel issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (No. 14), and three years ago guest-edited a special issue of Arab Studies Quarterly on modern Iraqi literature. He is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and American Studies, Grinnell University.