The 2003 war in Iraq spawned a decade of violence, chaos and suffering. The so-called end of hostilities with the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein opened a new era that will last for several years in which the politics and the policies of democratisation and pacification of the country will function in fact as a continuation of war. Beneath the intentions and the actions of pacification implemented in the form of building a new Iraq with democratic institutions, many battles raged, and violence is still lurking, involving different antagonistic groups and giving rise to more warring parties. All of this has perplexed and frustrated the Iraqi people, shattering their hopes for a better life, dignity and security, and revealing to them the contradictions and the paradoxes of the American occupation. It seems as though the promise of a peaceful, democratic Iraq was pitched so high that it couldn't be reached before the country sank deep into waves of violence and corruption that would lead to an uncertain future and a present that looks no less dehumanised and dehumanising than the awful face of the former regime.

Today, eleven years after the invasion of Iraq and almost three years after the end of the American occupation, Iraq is still in the throes of not a war in the conventional sense of the word but a cycle of violence and non-violence, where the end of a war that was supposed to establish the ground for peace and to realise the aspirations for law and order was only a fertile breeding ground for more killings and more human rights abuse. These realities of the occupation with its promises, its paradoxes, and its failures have been only partially and unevenly reflected on and debated in the news, military analysis and policy reports. Iraqi authors have also started to come close to reflecting in fiction the intricacies of the events of these years. Their perspectives offer a better understanding of the different experiences in a multifaceted war, the strategies of life in the ‘new Iraq’ and the choices for the future.