The Valley of the Butterflies

The Valley of the Butterflies is a novel which blends fantasy and reality, tragedy and comedy. Set in Baghdad between 1999 and 2024, it tells the story of Aziz Awad, a government archivist who loses his job and struggles to keep his small family alive. In the face of few prospects, he finds himself working as a driver, delivering bodies to a cemetery for foundlings and outcasts, where the souls of the buried metamorphose into luminous butterflies. One night, Aziz meets the cemetery’s builder, the dervish known as Badri al-Naqqash, and learns more about the cemetery and its burial rituals, and his life turns upside down. He begins to wander through alleyways and gardens in search of the bodies of foundlings, burying them in the cemetery and watching the transformation. Events escalate, and the luckless funeral driver soon finds himself behind bars, facing charges of organ trafficking. The story of Aziz’s journey from government employee to funeral driver gives voice to the experiences of many Iraqis during the period, who faced similar hardship in their daily lives.