In the fictional town of Balluria, the evil Sheik Jawad takes in the Gypsy Barrya as a love slave, preventing her from ever dancing again. The childless mystic Gypsy becomes the surrogate mother for the many children in Balluria; one of them is the mayor's son Salam. Barrya mesmerizes the young boys and girls with her stories mixing myths, legends and history and the secrets of the mystic town. Salam and his best friend Hamid spend countless days together. Salam and Hamid's sister Amel form special bond through poetry and love songs. Unable to recognize her true love, at seventeen, Salam travels to America to study medicine to fulfill his father's dream. Embracing his new life as an American Salam turns his back on his father's dream, his family, friends, and ultimately his own roots. The events of 9/11 and invasion of Iraq awakens long forgotten wounds bringing inescapable massive yearning. Salam travels to his homeland where he finds the mirage of the gypsy woman; she heals him through the revealing of secrets of hidden history of his homeland. Salam finally comes to peace with himself and his past, allowing hope into his heart and into the future. Armand Nassery captures the torment of a man caught between two worlds, a citizen of both but belonging to neither in this spellbinding debut novel. A manifestation of hidden realities and vivid mirages, Armand Nassery's epic saga of love and family reveals the ultimate deceptions and accuracies that have shaped the consciences of generations of Iraqis for the past fifty years. Reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Khalid Hussieny's The Kite Runner, his retelling of history through the eyes of a mystic Gypsy is a serene, natural mirror reflecting Iraq's past and present. Borne out of the author's own struggle for survival, Where Wolves Dream is a masterpiece, a mesmerizing blend of realism and magic that tears open the struggle of a country too long held in the darkness of violence.
About the Author: Armand Nassery is an Iraqi-American author and independent filmmaker. Armand Nassery was born near the marshes of the province of Dhi-Qar; the middle child of eleven siblings. Armand's family moved to the capitol Baghdad in search of a better life. In elementary school, he mainly liked to read literature, poetry and history and was fascinated with the English language class. In early eighties, the Armand's family had to move back to the south because of being tagged as disloyal to the Ba'ath party. In the south the family settled in a small town, which is the setting of the novel. In high school, he joined the theater group in the school and with the help of his older brother they wrote and directed mostly all the theater plays. Also he met a female classmate who introduced him the music of Lebanese diva Fairuz and the poetry of Iraqi poet Badr Shakir Al Sayab. In college, Armand met a group of students who opposed the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and some of them were members of opposition parties. In the last day of his final exams of his last year the fearsome Iraqi secret political police Al-Amen arrested Armand on the charges of writing poetry that deemed disrespectful to the dictator Saddam Hussein; a charge that could land him the death penalty. In the dark dungeons of Al-Amen, Armand endured two months of torture, interrogation.He was released with the conditions that he will never join any forbidden party and never write poetry again. After the gulf war, in March of 1991 public uprising against the Saddam Hussein regime started. Armand joined his brothers in armed struggle against the regime and its republican guards, where he faced certain deaths many times. Armand fled Iraq when the last town in the south failed to the brutal suppression of ruthless Saddam's forces. For his role Armand was sentenced to death in absentia. After three days in the Iraqi desert, Armand was able to flee to Saudi Arabia with the help of the American soldiers of the 82nd airborne division. Arriving in Saudi Arabia the Americans had no choice but to hand him over to the Saudis. He was imprisoned and tortured again for six months for illegally crossing the borders. Armand migrated to the United States in in 1992 and since then, he has lived in the Midwest and California for the past two decades. He uses his own life experiences in the historical fiction novel Where Wolves Dream.