Iraqi UN Ambassador Lukman Faily publishes English edition of Between Two Generations

Shafaq News- Baghdad/ New York

Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Lukman Faily, announced this month the publication of the English edition of his novel Between Two Generations, originally written in Arabic during the COVID-19 pandemic and first published in 2021.

The book is structured as a dialogue between two brothers —one defined by lived experience, the other by a tension between frustration and ambition. Through their exchange, Faily examines questions of identity, responsibility, governance, and the growing distance between what Iraqi youth expect and what their society delivers. "We did not lose hope as a generation," Faily writes in the novel's opening. "We simply did not find it in the world you built for us."

In a statement accompanying the release, Faily said the pandemic-era pause that shaped the book pushed many to confront difficult questions about themselves and their societies. He described the novel not as a work of answers but as an attempt to reopen space for honest public dialogue —one he considers increasingly absent in Iraqi life. "We are not prisoners of history unless we choose to be," he wrote. "From today's geography, we can write a new history —if we dare to rethink our path forward."

The English edition is available through London Book Publishing and on Amazon UK.

About the Author

Faily, born in Baghdad in 1966 into a Feyli Kurdish family, served as Iraq's Ambassador to the United States from 2013 to 2016 before later assuming the role of Ambassador to Germany. He assumed his current position as Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in July 2025.

Between Two Generations is Faily's third book and sits within a broader body of work focused on Iraq's political and social fabric. His other titles include Building Iraq: Reality, External Relations and the Dream of Democracy (2019), Weimar Republic and Its Lessons for Iraq (2022), and The Iraqi Character: Between Cafés, Palaces, and Minarets (2024), the English edition of which he said aims to give international scholars and policymakers a window into Iraq's identity, culture, religion, and politics.