Out of Mesopotamia offers an unprecedented glimpse into the fight against the Islamic State, drawing from the author's unique experience embedded with Shia militias on the ground in Syria and Iraq over recent years -- these are the same militias commanded by Iranian general Qasim Soleimani, whose assassination this January led the US and Iran to the brink of war. Salar's perspective is one seldom seen on CNN or heard on NPR.

This book aims to do for the war against the Islamic State what Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried did for our understanding of Vietnam, a good comp is The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, along with novels by Iraq War veterans Phil Klay (Redeployment) and Matt Gallagher (Youngblood). The key difference is that this comes from an "own voices" perspective of Middle Eastern fighters, which is unprecedented in contemporary literature and is a major media hook/talking point. The novel seamlessly blends literary fiction and combat writing in the same manner as The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste.

Against the backdrop of real-world suffering, the novel manages to be both deeply humanistic and darkly funny, capturing the absurdity, confusion, and horrors of war.

Expected prepublication blurbs from Maaza Mengiste, Victor LaValle, Teju Cole, Sebastian Junger, etc.

Abdoh already has major broadcast interest (NPR, multiple BBC programs, etc.) stemming from a summer 2019 NYT op-ed he wrote on the ongoing tension between Iran and the US (and this story, like the ongoing fight in Syria/Iraq, is not going anywhere): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/opinion/sunday/iran-crisis.html

Abdoh is a frequent contributor to Guernica and other publications.

Abdoh teaches in the English department at the City College of New York.