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Mahmoud Saeed is an Iraqi author who left Iraq in 1985 after being arrested and imprisoned six times. After the 1991 Gulf War, he returned to Iraq only to flee again to Dubai. He has written more than twenty novels and short-story collections, but two of his novels were destroyed by the Baath Party regime in Iraq and another three were lost. His novels Rue Ben Barka and Saddam City have received special critical acclaim. His novel The World through the Eyes of Angels won the 2010 King Fahd Center Award and was published by Syracuse University Press in 2011. He has won several other awards and been recognized by Amnesty International for his promotion of human rights.