Book Review: 'The Question of Justice and Identity in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad'

Ahmed Saadawi’s third and last novel Frankenstein in Baghdad was originally published in Arabic in 2013 and has since been translated into several languages, including an English translation by Jonathan Wright in 2018. The novel, which won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, is a heart-rending story of a country blighted by an unending cycle of war, violence, and misery. Saadawi’s novel captures the mood of post-war Iraq and provides the readers with one of the most vivid descriptions of mayhem and terror in Middle Eastern literature. The title of the novel is more misleading than clarifying. Apart from a couple of passing references and a superficial similarity in creating a patchwork monster inflicting terror and violence, Saadawi’s novel has almost nothing to do with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).