Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures Naima El Bezaz Wain is a fully-illustrated collection

Wain is a fully-illustrated collection of LGBT themed poetry aimed at teens (but suitable for all ages) based on retellings of Scottish folk tales

murder and memory

that one is slow to try to describe him at all

the sea hisses into the spaces between the lines

and grew up there

Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures Naima El Bezaz Wain is a fully-illustrated collectionThis open work was written in defiance of the sanctity of genre and to raise the question of freedom of expression in writing. First published in Arabic in 1969 to great acclaim, it has been variously called a novel or a prose poem, while the author calls it an epic in prose, divided as it is into cantos. In mid 1960s Iraq such an open ended form, in which different genres could come together and blend into each other, was difficult to even imagine.