Author Spot/Dr Anwer Ghani

MY FATHER

ANWER GHANI

IRAQ

Chapter One

My father is from this land and he has a headband and a thick woolen cloak but that is not a good excuse for me to be so oriental. Yes, my father is very oriental, and his branches extend to the good tree that rises like the sun, and embraces the earth with love, east and west.

So is my father from a farming folk who know the look of birds and understand the words of water. The moon has beautiful tales in their memory and they can make special coffee, so I see no reason to sit there on that hill and shut my windows for the rain. Yes, we are the descendants of the rain that has always revived dead souls and will revive them in its sublime appearance.

My dad is a big farmer, he planted me in our little river, so I come out like a damp brush, I love the sun when it burns my cheek and I madly love the smell of mud. I fade into our river like an old fairy tale and without fatigue I will repeat the songs of our birds blowing our blue flowers their free wings.

Wings are the daughter of the wind, for my father once said that the wind always touches the wings of windows in the early morning with a strange tenderness. My father knew the language of the wind, and knew how wonderful it is for a person to have wings, so he gave his sons wings from his heart, and he carried weights for their shining feathers. Now I can see the spirits of the winds, and among them the spirit of my Father, among our precious ancestors, who always strove for a wind-winged man.

Yes, I am a free bird, I go out in the morning cheerfully because our father planted us with wheat seed. How I love the noon when it touches my face so that I can see my soul on my luminous dream. At that time, I was fading into the arms of a rich master, carrying me on his neck, smiling and not terrified. That's how I faded into the butterfly colors when I was a kid. Ah for the purity that it carries. Yes, I am so free that I can sing the songs of dawn and learn their rosy voices in the hills.

I'm a farmer from the south, farms used to be free. My dad mixed me with amber. Yes, I am a simple farmer from the south but I am free, around me a little tree and a small river, and little birds, birds that teach me freedom.

Chapter Two

I heard the whispers of our river in a precious moment. It was as colorful and magical as our souls are like my father's tales where you can see all the smiles that hide behind the veil, and hear all the news that fills your heart with the breeze. Believe me, my father was a lot of silence, but he overflowed with love and planted a smile on our mouth, so you will find in my eyes nothing but colorful whispers and a river combing braids, a warm sun that always and tirelessly paints a colorful smile on her lips.

My father is not a poet, but he knows poetry very well, and one day he said that poetry in winter is more beautiful. Indeed, my father was a soldier, but he knew poetry very well, and on a winter's day he looked at the twilights and said that poetry in the winter is more beautiful. I was a kid at the time, but I knew hair well and was thinking that winter hair is more beautiful. my father said; That southern farmer and old soldier, winter is the season of poetry. The farmer's son also believes that winter is the season of hair. we are from here; From the south; The land of poetry, where trees are pictures of hair, rivers are a stream of hair, and women cut hair.

I've always wanted to be a bird, so I can fly freely in a wide area. Perhaps all this is from the space that my father planted in my soul.

I always try to wear white, but all my attempts always fail, perhaps because I am from a land where blackness takes root and I have a long history of tears. I am the son of dim lights, so I know candles only in the tales my father tells me, but look at my hands, they are white and look at my face He smiles at you and tells you to be a rose; Roses do not know hate.

As I told you, I am an Iraqi man from the south, and my southern father told me there is a big tent where a free man wears smiles for foreigners. He told me he embraces the stranger because he was once a stranger. Look at my bag, I put my dreams in it, some flowers, my father's stories and some Al-Mutanabbi's poems, but as you can see, I am forbidden to speak. Yes, I shall learn the sound of birds, and the gray wind shall find no place in my skin. I am a free bird, I love the smell of mud, and because my father planted me as a grain of wheat, so I love the midday sun when it touches my face.

Chapter Three

My father is not a legendary lover, but he knows love very well, and one day he said that love is more beautiful in the summer. I am an old farmer, and I have learned from rivers and trees that summer is the season of love. we are from here; From the land of love, where trees are the colors of love, rivers are pictures of love, and birds are love stories. I am from here, from this land, where love is most beautiful in summer.

I like the moment of absence and I love the smell of my father's absence. The colors are the remnants of a love story and the eyes of an old lover. Now sit down please, don't worry; I'm fine; I am not crazy; I'm just trying to live without my lost love.

We should be good and laugh just like my dad, but I'm a dry man who knows nothing of grass. This land, which I have always loved, stands proudly on my shoulder, so I cannot see its shining face, but I touch everything in its corners.

Yes, I know I have a very wet sandy face that evaporates every night with a soft wind, but my dad said that wind is coming from the high castle.

Chapter Four

We love our land. Not just because we have brown skin but because my dad was a self-made farmer. You can see our shroud. It is beautiful as the light and you can see our birds; They are just as wise as the builders of Uruk.

My father's wheat field had a door. I was a little boy when ears of wheat told me about amazing things. She was yellow because her heart was golden.

The story does not start with my father's wheat; Wheat man, because now our wheat is a strange kind. Now I will tell you a secret. We are farmers with roots like a palm and golden skin like our wheat, and we are happy when we disappear into the flavor of the fields, so you may see golden eyelids covering the eyes of our trees.

Well, I'll return my father's field and pretend he came from there, from the ancestors. And I'll rearrange myself and pretend I came from there. Of the wheat of the ancestors, I am the man of wheat.

Chapter Five

My father owned a ship but I guess he couldn't imagine the size of my dream. I mean the dream that does not move. I now have a ship, but no wings or legs. Here in my chest there is nothing but broken wishes. I mean sweet wishes but there is no road and no train.

My father is a good man, but on a late night he told me a strange story about the land of my ancestors, where the moon is without face and the sun is without colors. So, I'm from a land that stands cold. Yes, in my land, neither flowers nor dreams; Nothing here. Empty streets. No lovers, no flowers, no faces. In my land you find nothing but stolen faces. Yes, I am the heir of a good man who has been stolen. That man who has no voice. The unknown man.

My father had a mare with a merciful heart. I didn't see him, but they told me she was kind and brave. My family might have a saddle, too. I don't know and I didn't ask about this, but I think if we had a saddle, it would be like our desert. You know, I am an Arab man of this land and there is nothing here but deserted spirits and cold nights, so I decided to dive into my father's well and hide in his old fields in search of our lost horse.

Chapter Six

My life is not as big as my father's river, who tried to plant trees in its sand. Legend says that he dug a river in a migratory moment, so he called it (Hijran), and because he went to the sand, his land was barren. Her skin was dyed a beautiful, milky green. Despite all the palm trees he planted around, you can recognize my sandy face. Now I am not in a barren land, but its dry winds color my dreams.

I now go out, as usual, to my father's garden as a wet story, but now so thin as an onion peel, that I can see that fish sleeping at the bottom of our strange river, it has become so transparent that no one can see me, not even me and that is strange but warm. Warmth is a fun thing.

Actually, the problem is what my dad told me when I was a kid. My very skinny father, who had no Eid smiles, was among the forgotten Iraqi dead. He was sitting on a lake of oil, but this oil traveled to remote areas, and I don't know why? Anyway, my father told me that all the milk of cows, goats, and ewes had been transported to those remote lands, and that this had happened in broad daylight and in the eyes of all, and told me that he did not know why this had happened?

Chapter Seven

I heard that the rivers would breathe their laughter next summer, and the birds would lay their eggs in the trees and build their nests in my father's garden. The clouds will tell stories and the rain will fade for hours. I will go to one of the doors of my father's little orchard, and I will paint a little watermelon on it and celebrate. I will invite all the birds of the earth to plant a melon in our fields for a great celebration. It's the great watermelon feast.

They said that the treasure of our ancestors is now in the belly of a blond whale, of course not in my father's closet or under a brown tree in his garden. It takes me many light years to reach the ocean where this strange blond whale lives to see its blue eyes. Yes, I am sure that the jewels of our ancestors and the oils of our ancestors are not in my father's cabin or in his garden, but in the hands of a very blonde; In the blonde garden under a blonde tree. It is in their hands, not because they built the walls of Uruk, nor because they stood in the rain or because the noon sun burned their foreheads, but our treasure is under their hands because they simply had a blond whale with blue eyes.

Biography: Dr. Anwer Ghani is a Doctor by profession and author by passion. He had written over hundred books and has done important work in expressive narrative prose poetry. Dr Ghani is consultant nephrologist and lives in Babylon along with his small family, two daughters, one son and wife. A micro interview with Dr Anwer Ghani is available below-

• How was your childhood? Where did it spend?

My childhood was in the countryside between the fields, and when I grew up in school age we moved to the city and completed my studies there. My family is distinguished and has its name among people. We are descended from the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, may God bless him , and childhood life was stable, calm and happy among the family.

• Tell me about your profession?

I work as a physician, and I am very happy with my work and my specialist is kidney disease and dialysis, and I have been working as a doctor for twenty years.

• What are the impacts of your parents upon you?

My mother and my father are peasants from peasant families who are relatives, and my father was a soldier and he was martyred in the war and I was at an early age during the school days and my mother and my grandfather took care of us, and they made every effort to get us to education as we are five brothers and a sister we all spoke to education but I am the only doctor.

• Tell me about Babylone?

Babylon is my city in which I was born and lived and I am now in it, it is on the Euphrates river. and in it lies the historic city of Babylon, which was a city of ancient Babylonians. And Babylon carries symbolic in my writing because it carries history and civilization.

• Who are your favourite writers? What type of book do you enjoy?

I like to read religious and literary books, and I am interested and researcher in the books of religion and interested in the religious school that adopts clear and established knowledge in religion represented by the useful and satisfied Sheikh, and they lived in the eleventh century AD, and in literature I love reading poetry and criticism and Among the most important of the readers of them are the Arab Mutanabi, the French Baudelaire and the American Simic.

• Tell me about your family?

live in a small family of a wife and three children; two daughters and a son, two in the university and the youngest daughter in middle school and I work as a doctor and we live in a calm and stable atmosphere and I have a good relationship from my mother and my brothers and relatives and friends.

• What are your hobbies besides literature?

I love to travel, I love authorship, and maybe my hobby is authorship and yet I have written over 150 books.

• How did you manage to fit writing in with other demands on your time?your writing routine?

I work regularly in my work and with my family and in my reading and writing and sleep for seven hours and do not go out or contact people often and most of my time is on the laptop

• What do you feel about the tormentic condition of Iraq ? Especially the impact of the war and dictatorship of Saddam upon your growing years

I consider my poetry a record of the devastation that the wars in Iraq left behind. Perhaps the reader always sees the specter of war in my poems, and maybe not without a poem referring to the war, I am the son of wars.

• Why did you select a particular genre prose poem?

I have aesthetic and critical dimension in writing and many decisions about the truth of poetry and artistic writing, and I found the most vocal and clearest and most powerful type of literary writing is the prose poem and prose poem is only fluent by the few writers and because it provides more freedom for honesty than any other form. And my specific type is the expressive narrative prose poetry which is a deep practice in prose poetry.

Dr. Pragya Suman