Maryam al-Mullā (al-Baṣṣūn) was born in Baghdad in 1927 and educated in Iraqi public schools. She became a writer and between 1945 and 1951 she published short stories in Iraqi journals and newspapers such as al-Fatāt (The Young Girl), al-Siyāsa (Politics), and al-Muṣawwar (The Illustrated). After her emigration to Israel in 1973, with her husband, the journalist Salīm al-Baṣṣūn (1927–1995), she published in the local Arabic press, mostly in the governmental newspaper al-Anbāʾ (The News). Her best-known story was “Maʾsātuhu Mathal” (His Tragedy Became a Proverb) on …