The American Other in the Contemporary Iraqi Novel An ("The American Granddaughter" by Inaam Kaja Ji as a model)

The problem of the relationship with the Western or foreign "other" has been one of the most important issues that preoccupied many researchers throughout the past century. The aim of analyzing the image of the “other” here is to clarify the image of the Western personality, in particular the American one, from an Arab perspective, to deepen awareness of the self and the world, to identify the positions that stand behind the formation of the image of the “other” and to try to identify the features of the true image of him, by focusing on the descriptive-analytical approach. The study concluded that Inaam Kaja Ji portrayed the issues of the American "other" in abundance in her novel, reflecting her characters to deal with the other through different currents and differing in their positions between rejecting, conservative and agreeing. The image of the American "other" in the novel came to establish a state of doubt in many of the concepts and postulates of the "I", meaning the Iraqi person, which appeared in the character of the heroine Zina as a result of some actions and behaviors that result from the "other", as it makes the "I" live in a maze. The contradiction of exile and belonging affects the formation of the image of the “other” in the novel due to the factor of war, so that the plight of man appears between two nations, and this is evident in the psyche of the characters.