Basra event marks a four-volume critical study of Mohammed Khudayyir

BASRA — The Basra branch of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate has held an event on four books by the late critic Malik al-Mutalabi examining the work of the Basra storyteller Mohammed Khudayyir.

The quartet, published by the General Union of Iraqi Writers last year, takes each of four Khudayyir works in turn: “Cognitive Excavation” on “Basrayatha: The Image of a City,” “The Space of Towers” on the story collection “Autumn Vision,” “The President’s Lake” on the novel “Kanoon Notebook,” and “Metaphysics of Narrative” on “Dreams of Basora.” Mutalabi died in March.

Khudayyir told 964media that speakers “presented precise readings of the critical views contained in his work,” and described the publication as the first critical project of that scope devoted to a single Iraqi writer, where criticism had previously appeared as scattered articles and studies.

Ali al-Imara, who heads the Union of Writers in Basra, said the event celebrated both men. Writer Ali Hassan al-Fawaz said Khudayyir “is a narrative, cultural and intellectual phenomenon, while Malik al-Mutalabi presents deep cognitive excavations in his four-part project that affirmed the importance of creating a cultural legacy.”