USA TODAY / Iraqi author underscores the commonalities of humanity / By Donna Leinwand / 17/2/2003

MANAMA, BAHRAIN — Iraqi-born author Betool Khedairi sets things straight at the beginning of this interview — she wants no part of the world's current obsession with the diplomacy of Saddam Hussein. She writes, she says, of people and their relationships — to one another and to their culture. There is no hidden political agenda or point of view to promote and no critique of the anxious diplomacy now captivating the world. This is only partly true for it is almost impossible to sift out the politics buffeting Iraq from the people who live there. In her 2001 book, A Sky So Close (Anchor has just published the $13 paperback), the clash between east and west is embodied in a child born of an English mother and an Iraqi father. The main character searches for her own balance between those worlds.
"I tend to offer a collection of photos or sketches to the reader. I lay them on the table and I leave," Khedairi says. "Every reader has the opportunity to change the photos as he sees them. I don't like to impose my thoughts on someone." Born in Iraq in 1965 to a Scottish mother and Iraqi father, Khedairi lived in Baghdad until 1990, the year her father died in a car crash. She graduated from university there with a degree in French literature then moved to London to care for her ailing mother, who died in 1993. Finally, she settled in Amman, Jordan.
Her sister and other family members still live in Baghdad. She hasn't visited there in several years but her heart, she says, is always in Baghdad.
Khedairi is sad and sometimes quite angry about how her country has fared during her lifetime. She is near tears when she reads a passage of her book to a group of women sitting rapt in a Bahrain art gallery. It describes the bombs raining black over Baghdad during the Gulf War. She is furious when she describes the effects of the United Nations embargo on her country. She says it is the "Iraqi pain" that ignites her and makes her pick up a pen.
"When you catch a disease and can't find the proper medication, that is what I call pain," she says. "When children die in the thousands or are born with deformities due to lack of nutrition and medical supplies because of the embargo, that is called pain. When you have to sell all your belongings to survive, that is called pain."
Khedairi believes art and literature can break through Iraq's isolation and bridge the distance. As an author, she says she can underscore the commonalities of humanity. As the child of both cultures, she can serve as an interpreter.
"I think in Arabic. I feel in Arabic. I express and write in Arabic. That covers my eastern emotions," she says. "If I have a problem, I use my western side. My logical side is western."
When she read the reviews of A Sky So Close, she found herself fascinated by the disconnection between Arab and western interpretations. "Some sketches in the book were praised by the Arabian eye and the same sketch was considered puzzling to the western eye," Khedairi says.
"If you speak one language and I the other, you have one mentality and I the other. We must find a way to understand. Art cannot change views overnight but at least stop the fighting, the stereotyping, and let's meet somewhere."