Iraq + 100 poses a question to ten Iraqi writers: what might your country look like in the year 2103 – a century after the disastrous American- and British-led invasion, and 87 years down the line from its current, nightmarish battle for survival? How might the effects of that one intervention reach across a century of repercussions, and shape the lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens, or influence its economy, culture, or politics? Might Iraq have finally escaped the cycle of invasion and violence triggered by 2003 and, if so, what would a new, free Iraq look like?

Covering a range of approaches – from science fiction, to allegory, to magic realism – these stories use the blank canvas of the future to explore the nation’s hopes and fears in equal measure. Along the way a new aesthetic for the ‘Iraqi fantastical’ begins to emerge: thus we meet time-travelling angels, technophobic dictators, talking statues, macabre museum-worlds, even hovering tiger-droids, and all the time buoyed by a dark, inventive humour that, in itself, offers hope.

Translated by Jonathan Wright, Elisabeth Jaquette, Andrew Leber, Katharine Halls, Emre Bennett, Adam Talib, and Max Weiss.

Published with support from The British Institute for the Study of Iraq and English PEN.

Praise for Iraq +100:

One of NPR's Great Reads of 2017.

One of The Guardian's Best SF and Fantasy Books of the Year 2016.

One of Tor.com's Reviewers' Choice: Best Books of 2016.

One of Barnes&Noble's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Collections and Anthologies of 2016.

'Compelling, mind-expanding fiction.' - Guy Gunaratne, author of In Our Mad and Furious City (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018)

'A gamechanging giant leap for Iraqi futurism.' - Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction

'Dazzling and disorienting, these stories are not just reflections of turmoil, but also yearnings for peace and a connection with Iraq’s past grandeur.' - The Atlantic

"Though art can’t redeem history, let alone bring much solace, the most artful stories in Iraq + 100 can show what is specifically strange about the misery and hope that Iraqi writers, their compatriots, and their readers have been left to deal with—in the here and now, and for centuries to come." - Strange Horizons

"The writers balance dark humour and despair with a frail thread of hope for the future of Iraq... The writers featured in this collection promise to define Iraq’s present through daring, lucid visions of its future." - World Literature Today

"I admire the achievement of this collection greatly, and I want it to be read, and celebrated, and supported. Iraq + 100 is painful, difficult, and necessary; it's often beautiful, always harrowing." - NPR