A Plan to Save the World

First published in 2021, Iraqi writer Hassan Akram’s debut novel, A Plan to Save the World, gazes out through the eyes of a boy to explore the period following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A young and curious Hassan attempts to devise a plan to eliminate warfare from his homeland. Inspired by the eccentric Miran, who prefers the company of chickens over people, and messages transmitted to him by his dead uncle through a tape recorder, Hassan sets out from Basra on a quest: “I had to run in every direction, to explore this life myself.” In A Plan to Save the World, an excerpt from which was included in Best Literary Translations 2025, childhood idealism clashes with the stark realities of living through war in Hassan’s mission to not only save the world, but himself. "Dear Hassan, You’re probably wondering how you could be hearing a voice you never recorded. It’s me, your uncle Safi. No, you’re not hallucinating. I promise. I know how much you love new stories, and I’ve got plenty, some more bizarre than others. But first, don’t worry. No need for concern about what’s happening now. In the past, our ancestors would visit us in dreams and share tales about the afterlife. Sometimes, though, they came in less conventional forms. I remember that my mother pointed at a pigeon and said, “That’s your grandfather.” I was stunned. “You mean Grandpa turned into a pigeon?” I asked. She shook her head. “No, his soul returned in the pigeon to keep an eye on the family. He missed you.” Souls, she explained, play tricks to get closer to their loved ones. A lot of time has passed since those visits, and it seems that souls, like people, have adapted with the times. They’re a bit sneakier now. My grandfather had the soul of a pigeoneer, but mine is that of an engineer. So instead of fluttering through your window, I decided to reach you in a more technical fashion. Now, you might be wondering: Why you? My voice could have easily popped up on the answering machine at your aunt’s office, or been embedded in a news report on your father’s radio. But I chose you for one simple reason—you didn’t cry when you heard that I had passed away. Listen, I worried that if I visited someone else, they’d break down, start proclaiming miracles, say it was a sign from Allah, that I’ve been forgiven, and now I’m lounging in a glass house with a panoramic view of paradise. But I’m not after that kind of drama. I needed someone calm, someone who could handle this conversation without turning it into a sermon or a sensation." Hassan Akram was born in 1993 in Basra, Iraq. He graduated from Qadissia University in Iraq and participated in the Nadwa creative writing workshop organized by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) in 2019. His works include A Plan to Save the World and The Book of Nightmares. Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and writer from Egypt currently pursuing his MFA at Boston University. He won a 2023 English PEN Presents award for his translation of Kuwaiti author Khalid Al Nasrallah’s The White Line of Night and an excerpt from A Plan to Save the World was included in Best Literary Translations 2025. His translations, reviews and interviews have appeared in ArabLit Quarterly, Words Without Borders, PEN Transmissions, Consequence, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, The Massachusetts Review, Exchanges, and Markaz Review. Fawzy is an editor for Rowayat, Asymptote, and Minor Literatures, and podcasts at New Book Network (NBN).