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Ahmed Saadawi. Frankenstein in Baghdad. Trans. Jonathan Wright. New York. Penguin Books. 2018. 288 pages.
Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the first Iraqi novel to do so), Frankenstein in Baghdad is a dark, surreal tale of a creature born of and nourished by a city tragically mired in violence and chaos. Saadawi draws us into what would otherwise seem like a magical-realist world of walking corpses, astrologers, and wandering souls; except that the daily car bombs, American soldiers, and missing family members have warped "reality" such that almost anything seems possible in Baghdad in 2005.
Like the stories in Iraq + 100 (Comma Press, 2016), Frankenstein in...