Title: The City and the Beast: The Relationship between Intellectuals and the Authorities As Reflected in Mid-Twentieth-Century Iraqi Literature A historical examination of the relationship between intellectuals, particularly those with Leftist views, and the Iraqi regime in the mid-twentieth century reveals tensions and persecution, even torture and public executions. I propose to examine whether and how this state of affairs is reflected in works of literature beyond mere narrative documentation; in particular, I wish to inquire into the unique artistic devices used by two prominent Iraqi writers in the mid-twentieth century, Ghaib Tu'ma Farman (1927-1990) and Buland al-Haydari (1926-1996) in order to describe life under a repressive regime. The research method consists of close reading and a textual criticism that examines not only the themes and the conceptual aspects of the works in question, but also the artistic devices chosen by the authors and the intended objectives of using these devices. I choose to focus on two prominent elements in their works that will be exemplified in the course of the lecture: their attitude towards the city, and their extensive use of imagery taken from the animal world in their works, and the purposes of both. The sources that were examined for this study consist of Farman's novels and short stories as well as the collected works of Buland al-Haydari. The latter has to date received only scant scholarly attention, and the present study thus has the additional advantage of highlighting al-Haydari's methods for dealing with the regime in his works, in comparison with his contemporary Farman. The study shows that the ideological facet in the works of these two writers conforms to the way they perceive the city, its past and its future, and reveals a close connection between their charged relationship with the regime and the imagery that they choose to use.