First lines of the article
Sinan Antoon s second novel, Wahdaha Shajarat al-Rumman (The Corpse Washer), begins with a repetitive nightmare - the narrator Jawad sees his former girlfriend lying naked on a marble bench beckoning him.1 He too is naked. As Jawad, a corpse washer by profession, approaches her, she urges him to wash her so they can be together. "Why would I wash you?" he asks. "You're still alive." This idyllic scene is interrupted by the following:
I think I hear a car approaching. I turn around and see a Humvee driving at an insane speed, leaving a trail of flying dust. It suddenly swerves to the right and comes to a stop a few meters away from us. Its doors open. Masked men wearing khaki uniforms and carrying machine guns rush towards us. I try to shield Reem with my right hand, ...
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