"If death is a postman then I am one of those who receive his letters every day. I am the one who takes them out carefully from their bloodied and torn envelopes. I am the one who washes them, who removes the stamps of death and dries and perfumes them, mumbling what I don't really believe in. Then I wrap them carefully in white so they may reach their last reader: the grave," writes Jawad, the narrator and protagonist of The Corpse Washer. Born to traditional Shi'ite family of corpse washers and shrouders in Baghdad, Jawad decides to abandon the family tradition, choosing instead to become a sculptor, to celebrate life rather than tend to death. But the 2003 invasion and military occupation unleash sectarian violence and Jawad returns to the inevitable washing and shrouding.--[book cover]