Crossing the Tigress introduces Sahar as a high school student as she learns to cope with life under Saddam Hussein and the violence of the war between Iran and Iraq. By the time the American-led coalition invades Iraq in 2003, Sahar is married with two daughters. She works at the Ministry of Health (MOH) during the day and as a private practice dentist after hours. Disillusioned with the disappointing end of the Kuwait War and the effect of the UN sanctions on the common Iraqi population, she fears the arrival of the Americans.
However, soon after they arrive, Sahar hesitantly develops a close professional relationship with Lieutenant Colonel Joe Brown, who is assigned as the Coalition Provisional Authority’s (CPA) advisor to the director general of engineering for the MOH. Violence erupts all around them as the insurgency responds to the invasion and the CPA’s decrees alienating the top levels of the Ba’ath party and disbanding the Iraqi Army. Torn between the pressure from Zaid, an influential Saddam loyalist and Joe, Sahar strives to find the safest path for her family. As her world spirals out of control, Sahar must fight like a tigress to protect the only things left in her life worth defending.
“Every night I see them
tall, powerful American soldiers.
Eyes crazed
expressions brutal––hardly human,
compassionless killing machines.
Blood in their eyes,
their uniforms dirtied with the remains
of those they had already slain
wiped across their pant legs.
Every night, the rumble of explosions
jolt me from the nightmares of my sleep
tossing me into the terrors of my awake.”
-Sahar
