The Woman of the Flask tells the story of two Iraqi exiles who arrive in Switzerland after their escape from Saddam's Iraq. One of them, Adam, brings with him an old flask found among the
possessions of his late father who came from the Marshlands of southern Iraq. Adam's life is overturned when he polishes and opens the flask, and a fabulously beautiful nubile young woman
appears. She has, it emerges, been the lover of his ancestors going back five thousand years. The novel interweaves the threads of her memories of Adam's ancestors, his day-to-day life, the
lives of his fellow-exile and his Swiss wife, and his passionate relationship with the woman of the flask, who is unhappy with immortality. The narrative sweeps the reader along as Adam and his
friend encounter the banal reality of European bureaucracy and an alternative world of magic and fantasy. The Woman of the Flask is an allegory of the complexities of the world inhabited by
today's Iraqis - an unprecedented history, a grimmer recent past, and an uncertain but ultimately challenging future.
