Frankenstein in Baghdad

destroyed the telephone exchange, and the phones were cut off for many months. Death stalked the city like the plague, and Elishva's daughters felt the need to check every week that the old woman was okay. At first, after a few difficult months, they spoke on the Thuraya satellite phone that a Japanese charity had given to the young Assyrian priest at the church. When the wireless networks were introduced, Father Josiah bought a cell phone, and Elishva spoke to her daughters on that. Members of the congregation would stand in line after Mass to hear the voices of their sons and daughters dispersed around the world. Often people from the surrounding Karaj al-Amana neighborhood Christians of other denominations and Muslims too would come to the church to make free calls to their relatives abroad. As cell phones spread, the demand for Father Josiah's phone declined, but Elishva was content to maintain the ritual of her Sunday phone call from church.

With her veined and wrinkled hand, Elishva would put the Nokia phone to her ear. Upon hearing her daughters' voices, the darkness would lift and she would feel at peace. If she had gone straight back to Tayaran Square, she would have found that everything was calm, just as she had left it in the morning. The sidewalks would be clean and the cars that had caught fire would have been towed away. The dead would have been taken to the forensics department and the injured to the Kindi Hospital. There would be some shattered glass here and there, a pole blackened with smoke, and a hole in the asphalt, though she wouldn't have been able to make out how big it was because of her blurred vision.

When the Mass was over sh

a venerable literary work in the service of a modern-day cautionary fable . . . An excellent English translation.   Chicago Tribune

A remarkable achievement, and one that, regrettably, is unlikely ever to lose its urgent relevancy . . . Surreal, visceral and mordant . . . An acute portrait of Middle Eastern sectarianism and geopolitical ineptitude, an absurdist morality fable, and a horror fantasy . . . Strange, violent, and wickedly funny. Sarah Perry, The Guardian

Come for the fascinating plot; stay for the dark humor and devastating view of humanity.   The Washington Post

Fascinating . . . Strikes a feverish balance between fantasy and hard realism . . . The fabric of the city s neighborhoods couldn t be more sharply etched. . . . Saadawi . . . delivers a vision of his war-mangled city that s hard to forget. The Seattle Times

The [Frankenstein] conceit proves surprisingly apt. . . . Saadawi s novel . . . is more than an extended metaphor for the interminable carnage in Iraq and the precarious nature of its body politic. It also intimately depicts the lives of those affected by the conflict [and] offer[s] a glimpse into the day-to-day experiences of a society fractured by bloodshed. The Economist

What do you get if you cross the spiritualism of Lincoln in the Bardo with the sci-fi-cum-action-movie oomph of The Terminator? Possibly something resembling Frankenstein in Baghdad. . . . It s as much of a crossbreed as its ghoulish hero part thriller, part horror, part social commentary. . . . Saadawi . . . captures the atmosphere of war-torn Baghdad with the swiftest of penstrokes, and picks out details that make the reader feel, and even taste, the aftermath of the explosions that pepper the book. Financial Times

Hallucinatory and hilarious . . . Surprising, even jolting . . . Saadawi s satirical bite . . . means that any jokes come garlanded with darkness. Laughter often catches in the throat. . . . Jonathan Wright s elegant and witty translation . . . reaches for and attains bracing pathos. . . . This remarkable book [is] funny and disturbing in equal measure. The Observer (London)

Sinister, satirical, ferociously comic but oddly moving . . . Nightmarish, but horridly hilarious . . . A fable that puts a cherished Romantic myth to urgent new use . . . In their bicentenary year, Mary Shelley s scientist and his creature will take plenty of contemporary spins. Surely, no updated journey will be more necessary than Saadawi s. . . . Frankenstein s monster is more frightening than ever. The Spectator (London)

Darkly delightful . . . A lively portrait of a teeming, cosmopolitan Baghdad . . . The humor is sometimes laugh-out-loud. . . . Jonathan Wright s superb translation conveys the novel s contemporary, urban edge as well as its light and witty style. . . . [The] novel moves as much as it entertains. New Statesman

Very readable and darkly humorous; it has well-observed characters . . . The translation by Jonathan Wright is first rate.   The Times Literary Supplement

Ingenious . . . Hugely engaging and richly satisfying . . . Tells a vital story in a masterful way . . . One of those rare novels that manages to juggle literary ambition, political and social metaphor, and pure page-turning readability. The National

One of the best novels to emerge from the catastrophe of the Iraq War . . . Extraordinary . . . Earthy and vibrant . . . There are striking continuities with the original Shelley novel. . . . Saadawi s monster in Frankenstein in Baghdad is a hybrid creature for our times. It is a desperate marker of the brutal violence that has taken countless lives in the wars unleashed in the region. . . . But Frankenstein in Baghdad is also a sign that the imagination can still survive in these conditions, literary works flowering in the cracks of the rubble. Roger Luckhurst, Los Angeles Review of Books

Powerful . . . Saadawi and his fellow Iraqi writers depict Baghdad as a space where the absurd is not a function of Islam or the backward Arab mind but rather the product of the United States s imperialist encroachment. Mark Firmani, Los Angeles Review of Books

Exemplary . . . Comedic and irreverent . . . A glimpse of Iraq that can t be gleaned from traditional war reporting or policy memos . . . Offers both an escape from the reality of present-day Iraq as well as a new way of reflecting on it . . . Saadawi has sutured together a dystopian universe that confronts the horrors of reality, rather than offering an escape from it and, in doing so, has provided American science fiction lovers readers and writers alike a new and refreshing template for dystopian fiction fitting to our time. Sam Metz, Los Angeles Review of Books

Illuminating and arresting . . . Extremely funny.   Public Books

Suffused with macabre humor, this novel captures the bizarre reality of life that is contemporary Baghdad. . . . An important piece of political literature to emerge out of Iraq. The Week

The war novel after Iraq is alive in America, and an Iraqi perspective here gives a shot of high voltage to a reanimated discussion. . . . Saadawi s sentences are smooth, crisp, and McCarthy-esque; translator Jonathan Wright does an incredible job of bringing the haunting, brooding rhythm of the words to life. Rain Taxi

A surreal, funny and horrifying look at people trying to deal with the absurdities of war. The Virginian-Pilot

This adroitly written work of literary fiction ingeniously blends absurdist horror with a mordantly funny satire about life in a war-torn city. . . . Seamlessly moves between the surreal and the intensely real. Extraordinary in its scope and inventiveness.   The Irish Times

A haunting allegory of man s savagery against man and one of the most essential books to come out of the Iraq War, or any war. Elliot Ackerman, National Book Award finalist for Dark at the Crossing

Frankenstein in Baghdad is a quietly ferocious thing, a dark, imaginative dissection of the cyclical absurdity of violence. From the terrible aftermath of one of the most destructive, unnecessary wars in modern history, Ahmed Saadawi has crafted a novel that will be remembered. Omar El Akkad, author of American War

This gripping, darkly humorous fable of post-invasion Baghdad is a profound exploration of the terrible logic of violence and vengeance. Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment

An extraordinary piece of work. With uncompromising focus, Ahmed Saadawi takes you right to the wounded heart of war s absurd and tragic wreckage. It is a devastating but essential read, one that I am sure I will return to again and again. Kevin Powers, bestselling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds

Frankenstein in Baghdad courageously confronts the bizarre events set in motion by the violence after the American occupation of Iraq. . . . It s a painful and powerful story that goes beyond the limits of reality, in an attempt to reach the essence of the cruelty of war. . . . [Saadawi s] lively style is reminiscent of horror movies and detective stories, with touches of black comedy. Hassan Blasim, author of The Corpse Exhibition

Horrifically funny and allegorically resonant, Frankenstein in Baghdad captures very well the mood of macabre violence that gripped Baghdad in 2005. Brian Van Reet, author of Spoils

Weaving as seamlessly from parable to realism as a needle weaves a tapestry, Frankenstein in Baghdad perfectly captures the absurdity, mayhem, and tragedy of war. Mahmoud the hapless journalist, Hadi the unwitting Dr. Frankenstein, and Elishva the mother are all profoundly human and appealing, our guides to a rare glimpse of the human beings on the receiving ends of our wars. Funny, bizarre, and captivating, this is a must-read for all Americans who are curious to see the war at last from an Iraqi point of view. Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season and Sand Queen

Ahmed Saadawi has divined a dark, rapturous metaphor within the landscape of post-9/11 Iraq and, channeling Gabriel García Márquez, has written a love song to the humanity that endures even amid the ruins of war. Lea Carpenter, author of Eleven Days

A remarkable book from the heart of terror, where violence dissolves the divide between reality and unreality.   Thomas McGuane, author of Crow Fair and Cloudbursts

A haunting allegory for sectarian violence. Alexandra Alter, The New York Times
 
Matter-of-factly, Saadawi sets out a reality Baghdad in 2005 so gothic in its details . . . that, when the novel makes a turn to the supernatural, it barely shocks. The New Yorker
 
Expertly told . . . A significant addition to contemporary Arabic fiction. Judges citation, International Prize for Arabic Fiction

This haunting novel brazenly confronts the violence visited upon [Iraq] by those who did not call it home. A startling way to teach an old lesson: an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Kirkus Reviews

A harrowing and affecting look at the day-to-day life of war-torn Iraq. Publishers Weekly

Highly recommended . . . An incisive look at local life in Baghdad in 2005. The multiple narratives . . . intersect to form a complex whole. Library Journal

Captures the chaos, absurdity, and inhumanity of the recent Iraq War, leaving readers, like the characters, stunned. Helen Benedict, Lit Hub

A scathing critique of the U.S. invasion by way of front-row seats to its disastrous, lingering consequences. Zahra Hankir, Lit Hub

There is no shortage of wonderful, literate Frankenstein reimaginings . . . but few so viscerally mine Shelley s story for its metaphoric riches. . . . In graceful, economical prose, Saadawi places us in a city of ghosts, where missing people return all the time, justice is fleeting, and even good intentions rot. . . . A haunting and startling mix of horror, mystery, and tragedy. Booklist, starred review

As with any great literary work, this novel doesn t just tell a story. Rather, it unfolds across multiple dimensions, each layer peeling back to reveal something new. . . . Exquisitely translated by Jonathan Wright, this novel breaks through the superficial news stories and helps us see more clearly what the American invasion has wrought, how violence begets violence, and how tenuous is the line between innocence and guilt. Brilliant and horrifying, Frankenstein in Baghdad is essential reading. World Literature Today

A poignant and painful portrayal of a country whose ghosts have yet to be exorcised. Literary Review