In this powerful memoir, renowned artist Hassan Massoudy looks back on his turbulent life in Iraq with conflicting feelings of fondness, anger and regret. Si Loin de l’Euphrate is both the story of a young artist growing up in Nadjaf, later Baghdad, and a valuable historical testimony. It begins with Massoudy lamenting the inexplicable destruction of the first work of art he ever owned, a piece of cloth bearing the arresting image of a young child’s face: “I didn’t think then that that image would lodge so deeply in my heart…and last until this very day so that all my calligraphy is but a search for this lost image.” From the age of five on, after losing his image, he pursued his dream, doggedly procuring supplies and advice, studying the ancient and varying styles of Arabic, Hebrew and Latin calligraphy and eventually studying under a master in Baghdad. All the while Iraq’s tumultuous political and social conflicts rendered his artistic calling difficult and dangerous. Massoudy, accused of providing the writing on banners in a rally against the violence in Kurdistan in 1961, was arrested and jailed for forty days, and later during the government crackdown on artists in 1963 was forced to close down his calligraphy business, noting the irony that this beautiful art should be outlawed in the very place writing originated thousands of years earlier. Though Massoudy eventually moved to Paris and began an extraordinarily successful international artistic career, his Iraqi life always stayed with him and profoundly influenced his work.