Jamal Hussein Ali () is an Iraqi novelist and journalist born in Al Basrah, Iraq. He earned his doctorate (PhD) in Physics and Mathematics from Moscow State University (1993). He has published four novels, the most recent of which was Baghdad's Dead, as well as three collections of short stories and books about press release, literature and politics, both original works and translations. He has worked for several international and Arab newspapers. He has also won awards for stories, theater and journalism.
Literary activity
Early works
Jamal Hussein Ali's first novel, A Summer at the South, was published in 1983, followed by the publication of two novels in the 1980s, Lighthouses and The Twin, in addition to three collections of short stories: A Fading Shadow, The Living Shrine and The Coronets.
Baghdad's Dead
In 2008, the writer published Baghdad's Dead, a novel about a man who returns to Iraq during war. This man (anonymous throughout the novel) acquired a deep knowledge of the ontology of the dead through bonding with them in the morgue while studying medicine in Moscow, in addition to physics and mathematics. This was reflected in the recurrence of quotes, which are used as the chapter openers of the novel, thus forming a poetic rhythm to the language of the dead engraved on their chests as an Ouija legendary board. Jamal Hussein Ali has built a strategy that roams around hundreds of notations, using extracts from ancient books and those of more recent times to support his theory about the "Human truth" in its finest forms, deepest connotations and utmost prospects. This arduous work requires consideration of the poetic quality of death, research about "the Creation – Genetic Modification" of the characteristics of individuals and ethnic groups and the prediction of their biological and social future, as well as going through Gilgamesh, Al-Maʿarri, Dante and dozens of contemporary writers.
Baghdad's Dead revealed an epic vision of the reality of the post-US invasion of Iraq through the forensic medicine morgue in the capital, where the protagonist in the novel seeks the creation of the new "Adam" out of modified genes extracted from the bodies of victims of the occupation, militias and gangs. Baghdad's Dead, published in 2008, was considered the first novel in Iraq to adapt the idea of "creating" a human model out of the corpses of the victims. The novelist invested all the data of modern science such as medicine, anatomy and genome to embrace the tragic occupation in an Iraqi novel that was considered one of the most important novels covering Iraq's history at this stage.
Jamal Hussein Ali used in this novel the literary style embracing fictional metaphors and artistic expressions revealing a passion for literature. On the other hand, and because of his academic background in science, Jamal Hussein Ali adopted the scientific style when necessary, combining science and literature through a narrative plot that mixed reality and fiction along with scientific and literary knowledge.
Documentary literature
Based on his previous job as a war correspondent, a collection of books in documentary literature by Jamal Hussein Ali was published: Wheat of Fire – Women during the Nights of War, Initiating the Needle's Hole that covers his experience during the war in Afghanistan, Hell's Awakening that covers his experience during the war in Chechnya, Flowers' Altar that covers his experience during the war in Kurdistan, Imams Lobbies/ Windows that covers his experience during the war in Iraq, The Galaxy Bloom that covers his experience in the Iraqi Marshes (Al Ahwar). In 2013, another book was published, The Breakage of the Sunflower: pain of a war correspondent, diaries, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Iraq, wrapping all his experiences while covering the conflicts and wars in those regions.
In his book Wheat of Fire – Women during the Nights of War, Jamal Hussein Ali used his famous poetic language to influentially intensify women's conditions in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kurdistan and Iraq, revealing all the chaos in these regions as an attempt to briefly summarize the history's lessons and its nonexistent justice. The book highlights women's conditions in the countries that lived the war for a long period of time, affecting its social structures, thus exposing these women to another kind of war in the absence of men. The book includes live testimonies, facts and statements captured from onsite suffering, transmitted by the writer with a style that reflects the pain that these women underwent due to oppression and tyranny, yet abiding by the principles of the journalistic report regarding its main elements.