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A Prayer for a Corpse

JL;DR SUMMARY Samantha Ellis, an Iraqi Jewish Londoner, recounts her emotional journey to reclaim her lost heritage through her memoir, "Always Carry Salt." A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

IdentityFamilyRecipesDiasporaCommunityHeritageLanguage LossCultural MemorySamantha EllisIraqi Jewish Arabic

Places mentioned

New York City, New York, United States
"Speaking recently at an event in New York City, author Samantha Ellis, an Iraqi Jewish Londoner whose parents fled Iraq, recalled the incident that prompted her to write her recent memoir Always Carry Salt: In autumn 2019 I was in a cold London playground, spinning my son on a lurid, primary-coloured roundabout."
London, United Kingdom
"Speaking recently at an event in New York City, author Samantha Ellis, an Iraqi Jewish Londoner whose parents fled Iraq, recalled the incident that prompted her to write her recent memoir Always Carry Salt: In autumn 2019 I was in a cold London playground, spinning my son on a lurid, primary-coloured roundabout."
Iraq
"Not the Noah from Genesis, but Utnapishtim, Noahs ancient Iraqi predecessor. Noah is famously cold in his attitude toward his soon-to-be-drowned world, but Utnapishtim is colder."
Baghdad, Iraq
"How old are the people in this group? her grandmother asks. She then notes that days of aubergines, roughly translated to days of madness, refers to the days before air conditioning, when Baghdads heat could literally drive you crazy. Something only a native would know."
England, United Kingdom
"Then two of them died, a schoolteacher and a doctor. Even so, the books end finds Ellis pushing forward. She sees herself as one revivalist in a crowded field of them."

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Cairo Item ID 86450
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Retrieved 2026-06-30 05:33:04 UTC
Curated 2026-06-30 08:31:23 UTC