A sweeping, multi-generational saga that traces the fractured bonds between three Iraqi-British sisters

In the summer of 2014, three estranged sisters are drawn back into each other’s orbits through the discovery of their late father’s lost paintings. 

As Mediha, Zainab, and Ishtar lay claim to his legacy—an inheritance laced with exile, betrayal, and an Iraq they no longer recognise—Zainab’s son Nizar, a war correspondent haunted by his time on the front lines, returns to the family fold. As summer bleeds into autumn and the truth about the paintings unfurls, the family is forced to confront the personal and political betrayals that tore them apart. 

Spanning continents and decades, Floodlines grapples with grief and memory, and charts the emotional and political aftershocks of a century of war and revolution in Iraq and beyond. Inspired by the artistic legacy of Haddad’s great uncle, the Iraqi modernist painter Jewad Selim, Floodlines explores family, queerness, and the wounds of (neo)colonialism in haunting, visceral prose. 

"Haddad’s writing is a searing meditation on hope. FLOODLINES is beautifully crafted, and breathtaking in scope and reach. It is a book that mourns Iraq and all the senseless violence its people and lands have been subjected to, while celebrating its art, richness, and commitment to life.” - Tareq Baconi, author of Fire In Every Direction

"In asking what it means to make art, Floodlines manages to be cinematic and essayistic in the same breath. Above all, it manages to fuse the intimate subjectivity of disinheritance and displacement with unfolding history. An epic vindication." - Youssef Rakha, author of The Dissenters

"Haddad writes movingly about what we inherit, and places art at the heart of his exploration into how the tragedy of a country and the tragedy of a family live on the same canvas." - Michael Langan, author of Shadow Is a Colour as Light Is

"“Freewheeling and incendiary.” (Praise for Guapa, Europa 2016)" - London Review of Books

"“A vibrant, wrenching debut novel… sensuous and caustic, full of smoke and blood.” (Praise for Guapa, Europa 2016)" - The New Yorker

"“Fluent, passionate, and emotionally honest.”" - The Guardian