Literary works dominate book sales in Basra’s Al-Farahidi street

BASRA — Visitors to Al-Farahidi cultural street in central Basra showed strong interest in literary books during 964media’s weekly survey of Iraq’s book markets.

Bookstore owners cited high demand for works by Islamic thinker Mohammad Baqir Al-Sadr, particularly his 1960s book Falsafatuna (“Our Philosophy”), which critiques Marxism and materialist schools of thought from an Islamic perspective. Al-Sadr’s book remains popular among younger readers seeking insight into Iraq’s intellectual debates of the past.

Tawfiq Al-Jazaeri, owner of Al-Jazaeri Bookstore, said philosophy, history, and literature topped customer preferences this week.

Basra-born writer Mohammad Khudair was another prominent name, according to Fawzi Mustafa from Al-Jami’ Bookstore.

He said Khudair nearly led book sales in Al-Farahidi this week, with readers seeking titles such as The Black Kingdom, At 45 Degrees Celsius, and other collections and critical essays. Khudair describes writing some of his stories “between two fires” — in a rooftop room above a kitchen in Basra’s heat.

At Jamar Bookstore, Dostoevsky’s “Poor Folk”, the Russian author’s novel, ranked high among customer choices, according to Afnan Mohammad. The novel explores poverty and hardship in 19th-century Russia and introduced Dostoevsky’s literary style to a broad audience.