Najem Wali

Najem Wali (Arabic: نجم والي‎‎; born 1956) is an Iraqi novelist and journalist, based in Germany.

Born in Amarah, Wali fled Iraq in 1980 after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. He lives in Hamburg. Wali has published seven books. He is a correspondent for Al Hayat and has written in Süddeutsche Zeitung,Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and elsewhere. In 2009 he published "Reise in das Herz des Feindes" ("Journey into the Heart of the Enemy"), an account of his travels in Israel, which presented a positive view of the country.

Officially Najem Wali was – as with millions of Iraqis – born on July 1st, 1956. But the truth is that he was born on October 20, 1956 in the south of Iraq. This is just one of many stories in the country of thousand and one dictatorship und thousand and more wars. Having finished his A-Levels in Basra and Amara (his official places of birth, by the way) he began his studies of German Literature at the University of Baghdad. Having passed his university degrees in 1978 he was drafted for military service. In 1980 and during the military service he was arrested and tortured as a “dissenter” and “opponent of war”. A miracle made him come clear and he continued the military service up to his discharge in August 1980.

Not long after the Iraq-Iran War started on September 22, 1980 young men in his age were drafted again. He didn’t want to go to war, so he decided to leave the country. It wasn’t easy to get an exit visa, not least because his name was on the list of people who were not allowed to leave the country. But with the help of bribe and some friends he was able leave Iraq half legally half illegally. He came to the Federal Republic of Germany on November 8, 1980 where he continued his studies of German Language and Literature and obtained the degree of Magister Artium. His thesis dealt with Jakob Michael Reinhold Maria Lenz’s Der Hofmeister und die Soldaten und die neuen Interpretationen bei Bertold Brecht und Heiner Kipphardt.

...
Wikipedia