# The Bird Tattoo - Hardcover

by **Dunya Mikhail** (Author)

**A powerful and sweeping novel set over two tumultuous decades in Iraq from the National Book Award-nominated author of _The Beekeeper._**

**Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.**

Helen is a young Yazidi woman, living with her family in a mountain village in Sinjar, northern Iraq. One day she finds a local bird caught in a trap, and frees it, just as the trapper, Elias, returns. At first angry, he soon sees the error of his ways and vows never to keep a bird captive again.

Helen and Elias fall deeply in love, marry and start a family in Sinjar. The village has seemed to stand apart from time, protected by the mountains and too small to attract much political notice. But their happy existence is suddenly shattered when Elias, a journalist, goes missing. A brutal organization is sweeping over the land, infiltrating even the remotest corners, its members cloaking their violence in religious devotion. Helen's search for her husband results in her own captivity and enslavement.

She eventually escapes her captors and is reunited with some of her family. But her life is forever changed. Elias remains missing and her sons, now young recruits to the organization, are like strangers. Will she find harmony and happiness again?

For readers of Elif Shafak, Samar Yazbek's _Planet of Clay_, or Ahmed Saadawi's _Frankenstein in Baghdad,_ Dunya Mikhail's _The Bird Tattoo_ chronicles a world of great upheaval, love and loss, beauty and horror, and will stay in readers' minds long after the last page.

### Author Biography

**Dunya Mikhail** was born in Baghdad, Iraq. After graduating from the University of Baghdad, she worked as a journalist and translator for the _Baghdad Observer._ Facing censorship and interrogation, she left Iraq, first to Jordan and then to America, settling in Detroit. She is the author of _The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq_, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, _The Iraqi Nights_, _Diary of A Wave Outside the Sea_, and _The War Works Hard,_ chosen as one the New York Public Library's Books to Remember, as well as her edited volume, _Fifteen_ _Iraqi Poets_. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Knights Foundation grant, a Kresge Fellowship, and the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing, and works as a special lecturer of Arabic at Oakland University in Michigan.

**Number of Pages:** 304

**Dimensions:** 0.9 x 9.25 x 6.25 IN

**Publication Date:** December 06, 2022

## Details

- **Price:** 26.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 26.95 USD | In stock |

## Images

- The Bird Tattoo - Hardcover

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