Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi novelist, poet, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He is the first Iraqi to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; he won in 2014 for Frankenstein in Baghdad, which also won France’s Grand Prize for Fantasy. In 2010 he was selected for Beirut39, as one of the 39 best Arab authors under the age of 39. He was born in 1973 in Baghdad, where he still lives.
Winner of France’s Grand Prize for Fantasy
Winner of The Kitschies’ Golden Tentacle Award for Best Debut
Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award
“This profound, gripping book refreshes a centuries-old scary story
into today’s landscape.” —The Today Show
“The book I can’t get out of my head? The haunting, brutal and
funny Frankenstein in Baghdad.” —John Schwartz, The New York Times
Book Review
“In the 200 years since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, her
monster has turned up in countless variations—but few of them have
been as wild or politically pointed as the monster in Ahmed
Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad.” —Gregory Cowles, The New York
Times
“Intense and surreal . . . Assured and hallucinatory . . . funny
and horrifying in a near-perfect admixture . . . Saadawi blends the
unearthly, the horrific and the mundane to terrific effect. . . .
There’s a freshness to both his voice and vision. . . . What
happened in Iraq was a spiritual disaster, and this brave and
ingenious novel takes that idea and uncorks all its possible
meanings.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“A striking portrait of life during wartime.” —Emily C. Hughes, The
New York Times
“Brilliant . . . Crisp, moving, and mordantly humorous . . . Like
Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five, Frankenstein in Baghdad plays the
absurd normality of war for dark humor. . . . The monster is a
powerful metaphor, but the real reason the novel works is because
Saadawi writes with a rare combination of generosity, cruelty, and
black humor. He has a journalist’s eye for detail and a
cartoonist’s sense of satire.” —Roy Scranton, The New Republic
“[It] startles and stuns . . . Like the best science fiction,
fantasy, and horror, Frankenstein in Baghdad . . . stretches the
fabric of logic.” —The Atlantic
“Powerful . . . Surreal . . . Darkly humorous . . . Cleverly
conscripts a macabre character from 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, Literary Hub
“A scathing critique of the U.S. invasion by way of front-row seats
to its disastrous, lingering consequences.” —Zahra Hankir, Literary
Hub
“Fantastically original and deeply macabre.” —Nussaibah Younis,
Literary 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
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