Description: "Imagine that your only son was away in a war zone, exposed day and night to mortar attacks, IEDs, and snipers. Jacqueline Montez, the narrator in "Imagining Iraq" is the mother of a Marine stationed in Iraq. Racked with fear, she spends her days imagining her son's life in Ramadi, at the heart of the Sunni triangle, the most dangerous area of Iraq. To ease her loneliness and anxiety, Jacqueline rents rooms to veterans, many of whom tell her stories. The stories in this collection all based on true stories veterans have told the author. Some are heart-wrenching accounts of senseless loss. Some involve the moral choices soldiers must make-for example, whether to kill a terrorist when children are present. Some focus on the mental health of veterans struggling to transition back into civilian life. Others depict women soldiers determined to maintain their dignity in a mostly male world. Not all these stories are gloomy, however. One depicts an unlikely friendship between a Marine and a fiercely anti-American Iraqi tailor and another the collusion between a commanding officer and his men to save the life of a dog"--
Brief description: Bárbara Mujica is a novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and scholar. Her international bestseller Frida has appeared in 18 languages and was a Book-of-the-Month alternate. Sister Teresa was adapted for the stage by The Actor's Studio in Hollywood. I Am Venus was a Maryland Writers Association National Fiction Competition winner in the category Historical Fiction and a quarter-finalist in the 2020 ScreenCraft Cinematic Novel Competition. Mujica's collection of stories, Far from My Mother's Home (Spanish edition: Lejos de la casa de mi madre) focuses on the immigrant experience. Mujica has won several prizes for her writing, including the E.L. Doctorow International Fiction Competition, the Pangolin Prize, and the Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award for short fiction. Three of the stories included in Imagining Iraq have been winners of the Maryland Writers' Association National Fiction Competition in the category Short Story: "Imagining Iraq" (third prize, 2010), "Jason's Cap" (first prize, 2015), "Ox" (second prize, 2016). Mujica's scholarly books include Religious Women and Epistolary Culture in the Carmelite Reform: The Disciples of Teresa de Ávila; Teresa de Ávila, Lettered Woman; and Teresa de Jesús: Espiritualidad y feminismo; as well as the edited volumes Women Writers of Early Modern Spain: Sophia's Daughters and A New Anthology of Early Modern Spanish Theater: Play and Playtext. Mujica is a professor emerita at Georgetown University, where she taught Spanish literature. The mother of a Marine, she was Faculty Adviser of the GU Student Veterans Association and co-chair of the Veterans Support Team, a coalition of administrators, faculty, and students striving to make Georgetown a more veteran-friendly campus. She was awarded the University President's Medal for her work on behalf of veterans in 2015. Her book Collateral Damage, an edited collection of women's war-writing, originated in a symposium she organized at Georgetown called "Women Who Write about War." www.barbaramujica.com
Review Quotes: "As a veteran, I always knew that each time I volunteered for a deployment, I was also volunteering my wife and parents. With some guilt, I recognized I was asking them to do the hardest job. Through her stories, Bárbara Mujica becomes an eloquent spokeswoman for those who did that job. Veterans and civilians alike owe her a sharp salute." Tom Young, Washington Independent
"This spellbinding collection will break your heart and help you to understand the complexities of having a son or daughter at War. With powerful and candid prose, Mujica invites the reader to accompany her into a world of fear, hope, and resilience. Imagining Iraq is among the most powerful collections I have read on Iraq and on war in general. A brave and splendid collection." Marjorie Agosín, author of The White Islands, Braided Memories, and Maps of Memory "Authentic and affecting. A bracing literary investigation of war and its emotional ramifications." Kirkus Reviews "Wow, amazing! These stories blew me away. Should be required reading for all Americans so they can appreciate our veterans." Netgalley