Ibrahim recounts his past as the son of a family of farmers and landowners in Kirkuk: an idyllic place, where a mosaic of people from many different places and regions lived together and were neighbors in every sense of the word. But things changed with the start of the Iran-Iraq War when Ibrahim was conscripted into the Iraqi army to fight for Iraq. After the war, he left the country to escape the political tensions, ending up teaching Arabic Literature in Libya, then in Qatar. Passing through these countries accentuated Ibrahim’s memories of home, as did his sadness at each successive wave of violence that engulfed it and his memories.