Translator and writer, Basim Mardan, was a young librarian at the university in Mosul when the Americans invaded Iraq. A former student of English and linguistics, he was one of the first to celebrate the end of Saddam Hussein's psychopathic regime. He took a job as a translator for the US Marines, full of hope that he and his friends could help to construct a free and democratic Iraq.
Hope was quickly extinguished. The library at Mosul University was torched. He was branded a traitor. His family was terrorised. The CD of a friend being decapitated was left on his doorstep and he received death threats every day. Every household in Iraq was invaded by fear and Mardan went into hiding. His wife gave birth to a son and he returned to Mosul to work for a students' rights organization, until a close colleague was murdered. This time he left Iraq, finding safety for his wife and his child through Kjell Olaf Jensen, President of International PEN in Norway.
