Saddam Hussein wrote a romance novel in 2000 and an English translation, titled "Zabiba and the King," is available for purchase on Amazon, Business Insider noted.
The book is described as an allegorical love story that tells the story of a "mighty king," who is the representation of Hussein, and a "simple, yet beautiful commoner" named Zabiba, who represents the Iraqi people.
In the book, Zabiba is married to a cold man, meant to represent the U.S., who forces himself onto his wife.
According to a synopsis of the book posted on Amazon, "Zabiba and the King" became a best seller in Iraqi and went on to become an on-stage musical production in Bahgdad.
Attention first turned to the 160-page paperback in 2001, when Hussein was identified as the author of "Zabibah wal Malik" ("Zabibah and the King") by a Saudi-owned, London-based publication, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, The New York Times reported.
A copy of the book was located in London and a U.S. government interpreter scrutinized the novel for months, hoping it would provide a glimpse into the dictator's world view.
CIA agents later decided that Hussein supervised a team of writers to produce the book, however many others remain convinced that the former dictator wrote it himself.
"Some critics have suggested that Zabiba and the King was ghostwritten. I doubt that: it is so poorly structured and dull that it has the whiff of dictatorial authenticity," wrote Daniel Kalder, author and journalist, in The Guardian.
The book has received mixed reviews from the public.
One critic on Amazon described it as "overly-dramatic, overly-patriotic, overly-formal, overly-philosophical, and especially overly-verbose."
Another simply said the book "was absolutely horrible."
A reviewer posting on Goodreads.com described the book as a "curious novel which is deadly boring at times, but also exciting and suspenseful at others."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.