Bitter Blackness

Kajin loves reading. She is never more at home than when she's around books. When the owner of the Mosul Bookstore sends her Letters from a Father to His Daughter, she becomes entranced by the modern ideas. She's so absorbed that she doesn't see the attack until it is too late.

Kajin, a Yazidi inhabitant of the small Mount Sinjar village of Astira, is hunted down by ISIS fighters. Gone are the small pleasures of reading. Instead, Kajin is expected to provide pleasure to her new captors. She can be sold, raped, or killed on a whim. She isn't the only one. Thousands of women and children have been captured by ISIS and condemned to the same horrific fate.

It is in this agony that Kajin meets her new captor, Sami Hamdan. Kajin studies her dark, tormented new captor closely. Is the enthusiastic ISIS recruit the key to her escape?

A powerful and surprising literary novel, Bitter Blackness was originally published in Arabic in 2014. It was the first Arabic-language novel to speak out against the evils of ISIS. Author Mohamed Sulieman Elfaki Al Shazly is proud to present this new English translation of one of his most poignant works.