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.
