GZAR, Mortada

2016 Resident

Asia
Western Asia
Iraq

Arabic

Mortada GZAR مرتضى كزار (novelist, filmmaker, visual artist; Iraq) has an engineering degree from the University of Baghdad. The films he wrote, directed, and shot have been featured in international festivals; his animated “Language” won the Doha Film Award. He has three novels: [Broom of Paradise] (2008), [Sayyid Asghar Akbar] (2013), and [My Beautiful Cult] (2016), and is a regular contributor to the Lebanese newspaper al-Safir al-Arabiandis. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Writing sample

On The Map interview

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Our congratulations to Fall Residency alumni Sebastian Barry and Mircea Cărtărescu, both of whom appear on this year's Dublin Literary Award shortlist.
Jennifer Feeley’s translation of Tongueless, Lau Yee-wa’s thriller sketching Hong Kong’s slide toward linguistic totalitarianism, is forthcoming from Feminist Press.
In addition to becoming the Berlin LitFest’s first curator-in-residence, Helon Habila has also just received Kaduna Books and Art Festival’s KabaFest Lifetime Achievement Award, celebrating his "exceptional writing and significant contributions to the development of literature globally."
Congratulations to Enah Johnscott, whose film Half Heaven won three awards at the Cameroon International Film Festival—best film, best director, and best cinematographer.
We regret the passing, on April 11, 2024, of the distinguished Romanian author and critic Dan Cristea, who served as the editor in chief of the Luceafărul de Dimineață cultural monthly. In addition to being an alum of the 1985 Fall Residency, Cristea received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa.

GZAR, Mortada

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