http://wjel.sciedupress.com World Journal of English Language Vol. 12, No. 1; 2022 Published by Sciedu Press 162 ISSN 1925-0703 E-ISSN 1925-0711 Exploring the Literary Representation of Trauma in Contemporary Iraqi Fiction from Socio-historical Perspective Sayed M. Ismail Mousa 1 & Dr. Ghassan Nawaf Jaber Alhomoud 1 1 Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Correspondence: Dr. Sayed M. Ismail Mousa, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Received: December 20, 2021 Accepted: January 20, 2022 Online Published: January 28, 2022 doi:10.5430/wjel.v12n1p162 URL: https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v12n1p162 Abstract The present study aims to critically review the aspects of war in selected Iraqi war novels — Sinan Antoon, The Baghdad Eucharist (2017), Corpse Washer (2013) Zauhair Jabouri, The Corpse Hunter (2014)—that focus on depicting vividly the traumatic experiences of Iraqi, particularly after the US-led invasion of Iraq 2003 and how these novels could recur constantly to humanist themes and traumatized figures, the psychological suffering of minorities and the oppressed. In other words, it aims to make visible specific historical instances of trauma in Iraqi war fiction. The present study undertakes an in-depth investigation of the socio-political and historical dimensions of Cathy Caruth’s literary trauma simply because trauma experiences in Iraq were emanated from several causes such as social injustice, the oppression of minorities, political despotism, and the persecution of religious minorities, the displacement of Iraqis from the homeland, and the genocidal policies of jihadist. The study has found that Iraqi war fiction depends on the stylistic technique of repeating certain expressions, phrases, and lexical items to intensify the extraordinary events. It is a narrative of traumatic haunting known for its non-linear and circular style that often leads to ambiguity where readers are often unable to decode the authorial intentions, deriving its ambiguity from the traits of dreams and nightmares, the interpretations of which are continually and unredeemably haunted by the memory of loss. Keywords: circular narrative, Iraqi War Fiction, literary trauma, nightmares 1. Introduction The historical situations in which the selected war fiction novels are written were complex, to say the least, and without any exposition on this, it is difficult to understand the significance of the novels in terms of how they represent war and history and how they represent the traumatic experience in Iraq. It is important therefore to start with exposing the historical context in which Iraqi war fiction was written and how such a historical context, which was replete with wars, explosions, genocide, was portrayed in war fiction and how it could contribute to representing the collective traumatic conditions of Iraqi people. Since Saddam Hussein's ascent to power, becoming the president of Iraq in 1979, Iraq has been subjected to violent conflicts and wars both domestically and regionally, which included the Iraq-Iran war, the Iraqi-Kurdish conflict, Gulf War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the emergence of ISIS. This series of consecutive wars has made millions of Iraqi victims of atrocities, torture, and traumatic experiences. This current study aims to investigate the representation of trauma in Iraqi war literature by highlighting how Iraqi literature has been strongly influenced by the complex psychological, social, and historical factors that influence authors and their works. Thus, the current study examines the Iraqi narratives that depict the psychological suffering, feeling of internal alienation, loss of identity, estrangement, and the emergence of terrorist groups like ISIS, the repercussions of which were not limited to the survivors of the traumatic experiences but were transferred to the next generation born after the end of the Iraq war. Many Iraqi writers have found that writing is an effective means by which they can give voice to their wounds and depict their traumatic experiences. The Iraqi war narrative has come to be a representation of the mental and psychological effects of the war. Iraqi war novels serve as a testimony to the trauma of the whole country, examining how war narratives use the devastating emotional impact of wars and conflicts in Iraq to reflect on the period beginning with the first Gulf war until the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, coupled with the emergence of ISIS in Iraqi history, exploring ways of representing the Iraqi traumatic experience (e.g. surrealistic elements, nonlinearity, fragmentation, nonlinearity, and the use of nightmares), and examining the representation of the interrelated themes of trauma, identity, history, and memory manifested through traumatic symptoms, such as flashbacks and nightmares,