Mahmoud Saeed

Who is Mahmoud Saeed?

Mahmoud Saeed is an Iraqi-born American award-winning novelist.

Born in Mosul, Saeed has written more than twenty novels and short story collections, and hundreds of articles. He started writing short stories at an early age. He wrote an award-winning short story in the Newspaper “Fata Al-Iraq, Newspaper” in 1956. He published a collection of short stories, “Port Saeed and other stories” in 1957. In 1963, the government after 1963 coup destroyed his two novel manuscripts one under review, "The Old Case" and "The Strike".

Government censorship prevented his novel "Rhythm and Obsession" from being published in 1968, and banned his novel "Rue Ben Barka", in 1970. Rue Ben Barka was published fifteen years later in Egypt 1985, Jordan 1992/1993, and Beirut in 1997. Authorities banned the publication of any book written by the author from 1963 to 2008. His most important novels after "Ben Barka Lane" are The Girls of Jacob, The World Through the Angel’s Eyes, I am the One Who Saw, and Trilogy of Chicago.