Sacha Baron Cohen's on-screen antics have paired him with everyone from Pamela Anderson to Janet Jackson to US presidential candidate Ron Paul. But his next film provides the Borat star with his most outlandish collaborator to date: the former Iraqi dictator – and reputed romantic novelist – Saddam Hussein.

Baron Cohen, 39, will star in a Hollywood adaptation of Zabibah and the King, the tender tale of a wise and good Iraqi leader who falls in love with a humble peasant girl. Re-titled The Dictator, the Paramount-backed production will be overseen by Larry Charles, who directed Baron Cohen on the feature-length Borat and Brüno outings.

Zabibah and the King was published anonymously in 2000, complete with a strapline that promised royalties would go "to the poor, the orphans, the miserable, the needy". It is widely accepted within Iraq that the book was authored by Saddam, although the CIA later concluded that it was probably produced by ghost-writers, acting under direct instruction from the Iraqi leader.

The book charts the chaste love affair between a medieval monarch and the soulful Zabibah, who lives unhappily with her abusive husband. But what appears, at first glance, to be a sweet, simple folk tale actually contains pools of hidden meaning. It was intended to be read as an allegory for Iraq in the years following the first Gulf war, with the king representing Saddam, Zabibah embodying the Iraqi people and her husband standing in for the cruel and evil US forces.

Saddam's drama hits its crescendo when Zabibah is sexually assaulted by a mysterious figure who turns out to be her spouse. "Rape is the most serious of crimes," she explains helpfully. "Whether it is a man raping a woman or invading armies raping the homeland." Zabibah is later tragically killed on January 17, the date of the US's first aerial bombardment of Baghdad in 1991.

The Dictator shoots this year with a scheduled release date of May 11 2012. Baron Cohen will next be seen as the station master in Hugo Cabret, a 3D fable set in Paris and directed by Martin Scorsese. He has also been lined up to play Freddie Mercury in a biopic of the Queen frontman, scripted by Peter Morgan.

Zabibah and the King has previously been adapted into an Iraqi stage musical and a 20-part TV miniseries. Unfortunately, the tale's rumoured author will be unavailable to endorse this latest incarnation, much less attend the premiere, following his conviction for war crimes and execution in December 2006.