We in Iraq have not descended from another planet. Just as people in many other countries have gotten over the tragedy of war, Iraq will get over its ordeal.

I've been working on the margins and I was aware of this choice from the start. I buy most of what's written and produced in the Arab world and I don't much like it.

Some Iraqi writers are more daring today and have excellent imaginations and their material is rich in human experience. But the Arab prizes, once again, are part of the context of life in the Arab world - anarchy, confusion, and corruption.

While I was studying film at the Academy, the problems started. I wasn't a political activist directly in the time of Saddam [Hussein], because the dictator was so cruel and brutal that no one could criticize or complain. I felt futile and empty. The only solution in Iraq was to run away.

"Secret migration" across borders is a form of human degradation and evidence of the depravity of the human conscience.

How can one talk in a classical language about a child who's torn apart in an explosion in the market near his school? People in Iraq don't talk about their joys, their problems, and the destruction of the country in literary diction.

In fact I didn't think about fear much at the time. I felt angry about everything that was happening around me: the violence of the dictatorship and the violence of society.