Poppies of Iraq

Poppies of Iraq was written in 2017 by Brigitte Findakly and illustrated by her husband Lewis Trondheim is a memoir of Findakly's life growing up in Iraq.  Findakly had a better than average life in Iraq as her father was a dentist and they could afford private schools and vacations in France where her mother emigrated to Iraq from.  The family was unique because they were Orthodox Christians in a Muslim country.

With her father being asked to pay excessive taxes that he could not afford to pay, he decided to leave Iraq for France.  His cover story for the government was that he needed training on how to do dental implants.  The training was approved and the family left with no intention of returning until things improved in Iraq.  I believe the author was about 18 years old at this time.  However, this was 1979.  The Iran-Iraq War followed from 1980 until 1989, the Gulf War in 1990, and the second Gulf War in 2003.  Her father never expected his exile to be that long.

The family was not political unless they had to be and when her father could no longer support Saddam Hussein's government he willingly gave up his government pension and all hope of ever returning to Iraq.  The author, however, made several trips back to Iraq over the years and saw her relatives homes, possessions and dreams becoming more and more shattered.  Eventually they all left by 2016, their homeland no longer recognizable.

While the family did not suffer much religious prejudice while the author lived there, as Saddam Hussein's government took hold her cousins suffered persecution and developed Islamaphobia.  It seems to me though that the author's mother kept her indoors at certain times so perhaps there was some prejudice happening to them.

Poppies in Iraq is an informative graphic memoir on life in Iraq from 1950 through the present time.  The title comes from an archeological site in Nimrod where the author used to play as a child.  Poppies were prevalent there.