The Flavors of Iraq: Impressions of My Vanished Homeland

Originally published in French in 2018 and winner of the Prix Albert Londres, this unique graphic novel provides a glimpse of the devastating changes inflicted on Iraq as told through 1000 tweets and poignant illustrations. During the summer of 2016, distrought and disappointed by how Iraq is described in the media, French-Iraqi journalist Feurat Alani posted over 1000 tweets in which he told the world about his Iraq.

Feurat grew up in Paris, but spent many childhood summers in an Iraq that he watched fall apart under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. As an adult, he reports from an Iraq under American occupation, and discovers the sounds and silences of war.

The Flavors of Iraq is an intimate and discerning look at a battered country from first a child’s, then a young man’s perspective. Together with Léonard Cohen’s superb illustrations, the result is a poetic and powerful story of a different Iraq.

Born in France to Iraqi parents, Feurat Alani is a French-Iraqi journalist and author. He was a news correspondent in Baghdad from 2003 to 2008 for I Télé, Ouest France, La Croix, and Le Point. In 2008, Alani returned to Paris to work on the television newsmagazine L’Effet papillon. He is the cofounder of the production companies Baozi Prod and In Sight Films. Alani collaborates regularly with the newspaper Le Monde diplomatique, the website Orient XXI, the magazine Géo, and as a reporter and producer with Art, France 24, and Canal+. His award-winning graphic novel Le Parfum d’Irak was published in 2018 and later as a web series.

Léonard Cohen is a French animator based in Oakland, California. He earned his master’s degree in animation at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in 2009. His film Plato was selected in many festivals and won multiple awards. Cohen designed the TV series Le Chiffroscope, which ran weekly for three seasons (2012-15) on L’Effet papillon.