Dafer Schiehan has made it. Despite having his asylum application rejected, he has learned German, received a resident’s permit and found work washing dishes. In fact he is an academic, a political refugee forced to flee Saddam’s henchmen because of an unpopular stage play. He has never told his parents how he earns his living. Why the guilty conscience? What is he afraid of? In his new novel, Usama Al Shahmani tells of the depredations of a childhood and youth under dictatorship and war, of exile, and the loss of a world once called home.