The Fortified Castle (Arabic: القلعة الحصينة‎‎ Al-Qala-ah Al-Hasinah) is Saddam Hussein's third of four novels. The book involves political metaphor. It is 713 pages and was published in 2001. It is another allegorical work. It concerns the delayed wedding of the Iraqi hero, who fought in the war against Iran, to a Kurdish girl. There are three characters: the two brothers Sabah and Mahmud, from rural area from the west bank of the Tigris River from a farming family coming, and a young woman Shatrin from Suleimaniya. They all go into the same university in Baghdad.