Hassan Blasim is an Iraqi-born author and filmmaker, who writes in Arabic. Blasim left Iraq in 2000, and lives in Finland as a refugee since 2004. His first collection of short stories, The Madman of Freedom Square, was published in English by Comma Press in 2009. It was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2010. A heavily edited version of the book was published in Arabic in 2012, and was immediately banned in many Arab countries. His novel, The Iraqi Christ , was published in English by Comma Press in 2013 and won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2014. Blasim’s work has been translated into over 20 languages. His latest collection, The Corpse Exhibition, was published in the US in 2014 by Penguin, and was selected as one of the Top Ten Books of 2014 by Publishers Weekly. Blasim was described by The Guardian as “perhaps the greatest writer of Arabic fiction alive.”
