Ahmed Saadawi

Frankenstein in Baghdad

Natali Topliff

This retelling of Frankenstein is set against the backdrop of the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, and how people were left to pick up the pieces. It is during this period that the Whatsitsname is built using body parts of those killed during the invasion, however, the Whatsitsname finds that his body parts need to be constantly replaced as they deteriorate.

Bryan Alexander

This is an unusual novel. It's a story of Iraq during the American occupation. It's a fantasy or science fiction novel, riffing on Mary Shelley. It's also a satire of modern Iraqi life. And it all hangs together very well.

Frankenstein in Baghdad is centered on a fantastic conceit. Hadi, a junk dealer and extravagant liar assembles a human body made of corpse bits, and the thing comes to life to wreck vengeance on miscreants. Plots stem off of this, like an older woman grieving for a lost grandson, a military officer trying to bring the monster down, a reporter figuring out the story.

Along the way we see a country in shambles. Ahmed Saadawi's Iraq is wracked by insurgent warfare and military occupation, extensively corrupt and often incompetent, poor and frustrated. Terrorism haunts the land, but is never clearly depicted. American readers may feel disoriented at the lack of any United States characters. Americans appear as mysterious and dangerous forces:Although [Faraj] had clout in the neighborhood, he was still frightened by the Americans. He knew they operated with considerable independence and no one could hold them to account for what they did. As suddenly as the wind could shift, they could throw you down a dark hole.(69)
Why Frankenstein? Saadawai plays many variations on this theme. There's the aspect of body horror, which the novel turns to throughout, and which obviously makes sense for war. There's the sense of western import or invasion. Then there's also the sense of civil war and cycles of violence. The monster is "a composite of victims seeking to avenge their deaths so they could rest in peace" (130), but he keeps adding body parts to maintain his strength, which adds more malefactors to destroy, which takes more time, therefore needing more body parts, and so the cycle continues. The monster ultimately becomes a creature of pure violence, bereft of any other mission: "He knew his mission was essentially to kill, to kill new people every day, but he no longer had a clear idea who should be killed or why." (200) Further, the creature represents all of Iraq:I’m made up of body parts of people from diverse backgrounds—ethnicities, tribes, races, and social classes—I represent the impossible mix that never was achieved in the past. I’m the first true Iraqi citizen... (146-147)
 
On top of this, the novel undercuts its use of Shelley, as the name "Frankenstein" only appears in the work of an unreliable magazine editor (139); Hadi prefers to call the thing "Whatshisname" and others dub it "He Who Has No Name." Actually, the references work quite well. Hadi, like Victor Frankenstein, has problems with responsibility and care. Both lose track of their creations right off the bat. The novel doesn't fully copy Shelley's four-layer narrative structure, but does center the monster's tale through a tape recorder in the book's heart (chapter 10).

How does this fantastic metaphor work in a very real world situation? Quite well, I think, even with the addition of a paranormal investigation brigade. Saadawi slyly counters readers' objections thusly:Over the last three years the local people had heard many stories that were no more believable. Dead people had emerged from the dungeons of the security services and nonexistent people appeared out of nowhere outside the doors of their relatives’ humble houses. There were people who had returned from long journeys with new names and new identities, women who had spent their childhoods in prison cells and had learned, before anything else in life, the rules and conventions for dealing with the warders. There were people who had survived many deaths in the time of the dictatorship only to find themselves face-to-face with a pointless death in the age of “democracy”—when, for example, a motorbike ran into them in the middle of the road. Believers lost their faith when those who had shared their beliefs and their struggles betrayed them and their principles. Nonbelievers had become believers when they saw the “merits” and benefits of faith. The strange things that had come to light in the past three years were too many to count. (235) 

At times the novel reaches a bit too far or its claims misfire. One theme that rises through the later chapters is that of all of humankind being at least partly criminal, which is a bit weak as a way of understanding the Iraqi occupation. Similarly, when Hadi sees himself after an explosion and thinks he's looking at his creature, it's a scene that doesn't exactly shock us or, frankly, do much. The author's appearance during penultimate chapters didn't seem to have much of a point, unless I'm missing some local context.

Otherwise, please read Frankenstein in Baghdad. It's an imaginative, sympathetic, and rich novel. It offers a wide tonal range between gentle comedy, black humor, horror, rumination, and suspense. It reminds us of the power of fantasy to illuminate our world.

Meera

*Man Booker International Prize finalist* “Brave and ingenious.” —The New York Times “Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound.” —Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment “Extraordinary . . . A devastating but essential read.” —Kevin Powers, bestselling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi—a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café—collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive—first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path. A prizewinning novel by “Baghdad’s new literary star” (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.

A Novel

'Extraordinary... A devastating but essential read.' Kevin Powers, bestselling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds 'Gripping, darkly humorous...profound.' Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION From the rubble-strewn streets of US-occupied Baghdad, the scavenger Hadi collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and give them a proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realises he has created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive first from the guilty, and then from anyone who crosses its path. An extraordinary achievement, Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humour the surreal reality of a city at war.

Frankenstein in Baghdad

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