This picture was taken on October 13, 1999, 10 days before we left Iraq. It was in front of the Department of Cinema and Theatre in Baghdad. It was taken by our friend, Ali Issa. In the picture are myself and my husband, the writer Abdul Sattar Nasser. We now live in Amman (Jordan). We have asked for asylum (this can be anywhere) from the UN High Commissioner For Refugees and we are still waiting for an answer. Our permission to stay in Jordan is renewed every three months through the UN because you are only allowed to remain in Jordan for 6 months at a time and you cannot exceed this time limit. Altogether, things are not really going very well. However, I called my last collection of short stories “Everything is Going Well”. I left more than half the things, which are dear to my heart to be looked after by friends in Baghdad. The rest I brought with me in a small suitcase, which I took with me as I moved from flat to flat and from country to country. In it I had put pieces of silverwork, letters and pictures of friends, some of whom had been killed in the wars (Iran-Iraq war and Gulf War) or in prison. I lost this suitcase, or rather it was stolen from me. Now, all I have left is this picture. I don’t know whether it will be of use for the exhibition or not.

HADIYA HUSSEIN, novelist, left Iraq 1999

I found the marriage contract in an old soap box, hidden in my mother's cupboard when I returned to Iraq two years after my mother's death in 1982.

I left Iraq in 1958 to study in Germany, where I later met my wife and settled down.