The Scarecrow | Diaa Jubaili | Granta

The Scarecrow

Diaa Jubaili & Chip Rossetti

Translated by Chip Rossetti

‘Just at the time of the ceasefire between Iraq and Iran in 1988, an infantry platoon discovered that they were in a minefield.’

Translated from the Arabic by Chip Rossetti.

Diaa Jubaili

Diaa Jubaili was born in Basra, Iraq, where he still lives. He is the author of eight novels and three short-story collections, including No Windmills in Basra, winner of the 2018 Al-Multaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story, and What Will We Do Without Calvino?, winner of the Tayeb Salih International Award for Creative Writing. He was a contributor to the science-fiction anthology Iraq +100 and has written for the Guardian.

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Chip Rossetti

Chip Rossetti is an Arabic–English translator and book publisher. His published translations include Sonallah Ibrahim’s Beirut, Beirut, Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia and Magdy El Shafee’s Metro: A Story of Cairo. His translations have appeared in the White Review, Asymptote, Banipal and Words Without Borders.

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Translated by Chip Rossetti

Chip Rossetti is an Arabic–English translator and book publisher. His published translations include Sonallah Ibrahim’s Beirut, Beirut, Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia and Magdy El Shafee’s Metro: A Story of Cairo. His translations have appeared in the White Review, Asymptote, Banipal and Words Without Borders.

More about the translator →