American University of Iraq at Sulaimani Saeed was the first writer-in-residence at the
American University of Iraq at Sulaimani, where he taught calligraphy. He had previously taught intermediate and advanced Arabic language courses at
DePaul University and
Arab Culture and Iraqi Political history.
Saddam City Saddam City, published in 2004 by Dar Al-Saqi in London, is Saeed's most famous novel. The title was changed from the original Arabic title,
I am the One Who Saw () (), and was translated into English by
Lake Forest College sociology professor
Ahmad Sadri. The book was later translated and published in Italian with the same title. The book has been received well by critics, one of which called Saeed's novel "... bracingly convincing ... a simply beautiful, though inevitably harrowing, tale."
Amazon.com also wrote that "Mahmoud Saeed's devastating novel evokes the works of Kafka, Solzhenitsyn and
Elie Wiesel. It is a vivid account of the wanton and brutal treatment of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein's feared secret police and of the arbitrariness of life under tyranny." The novel has been applauded for highlighting positive aspects of Arab and Iraqi culture, including friendship, community, respect, generosity, and hospitality. Saddam City was also considered one of the best 56 novels in the world by the website Library Thing. According to the author, the original transcript of the novel included two additional chapters. These, however, were censored from the novel by the Arab literature guild in
Damascus, Syria. Because of this, he instead initially published it under a
pen name, Mustafa Ali Nooman in 1981. The book was republished in
Cairo, Egypt under his real name in 2006. ==Death==