Books from Iraq

Set in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Frankenstein in Baghdad follows Hadi, an eccentric junk dealer who collects body parts left behind by bombings and other acts of violence. Hoping to ensure that the dead receive proper recognition, he stitches the remains together into a single body. When the assembled corpse mysteriously disappears, a series of gruesome murders begins, and rumours spread about a creature that cannot be killed. As the authorities and local residents attempt to understand the violence, the creature becomes a disturbing symbol of a society overwhelmed by revenge and injustice. Blending horror, dark humour, and political satire, Saadawi explores the human cost of war and the difficulty of assigning responsibility when violence produces an endless cycle of retaliation. The novel asks whether a society fractured by conflict can distinguish justice from revenge.

Hyper follows the Kermanj family, whose lives are shaped by migration, political upheaval, and the growing influence of global capitalism. After Rafiq Kermanj, a Kurdish communist activist, is forced to flee Tehran for London with his conservative wife and three children, the family struggles to adapt to life in exile. As the children grow up, each develops a different relationship with money and success. Siver escapes an unhappy marriage in Baghdad and raises her daughter in Dubai, Mohammed pursues a career in London’s financial sector, and Laika becomes immersed in the world of algorithmic trading near Wall Street. Their increasingly disconnected lives reveal how financial ambition can reshape personal relationships and cultural identity. Ismaïl examines the pressures of modern capitalism, the experience of statelessness, and the search for meaning in a world where economic success increasingly defines human worth.

In There Are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak weaves together the lives of three characters connected by water, memory, and the ancient city of Nineveh. In Victorian London, Arthur, a gifted boy born into poverty, develops a fascination with the Epic of Gilgamesh. In nineteenth-century Ottoman Mesopotamia, Narin, a young Yazidi girl, faces the threat of displacement as her community’s traditions and homeland come under pressure. In contemporary London, Zaleekhah, a hydrologist struggling with personal loss, becomes drawn into the histories of the Tigris and its surrounding landscapes. Moving across centuries and continents, the novel explores the enduring connections between human lives, ancient civilizations, and the natural world. Through its interwoven narratives, Shafak examines environmental destruction, cultural heritage, religious persecution, and the transformative power of water as a source of life, memory, and renewal.