Displaced by the sectarian violence in the city, Maha and her husband are taken in by a distant cousin, Youssef.
As the growing turmoil around them seeps into their household, a rare argument breaks out between the elderly Youssef and his young guest. Born into sanctions and war, Maha knows nothing of Iraq’s good years that Youssef holds dear.
Set over a single day, The Baghdad Eucharist is an intimate story of love, memory, and anguish in one Christian family.
Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi poet, novelist, translator, and scholar. His essays and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Journal of World Literature, and Jadaliyya. His translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s In the Presence of Absence won the 2012 American Literary Translators Association Award and that of Ibtisam Azem’s The Book of Disappearance was long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize. His novels include I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody, The Corpse Washer, The Baghdad Eucharist, and The Book of Collateral Damage. He is associate professor at New York University.View all by Sinan Antoon
