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    The Baghdad Clock
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    The Baghdad Clock
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    The Baghdad Clock
    Ebook272 pages4 hours

    The Baghdad Clock

    By Shahad Al Rawi

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION 2018

    A HEART-RENDING TALE OF TWO GIRLS GROWING UP IN WAR-TORN BAGHDAD

    Baghdad, 1991. The Gulf War is raging. Two girls, hiding in an air raid shelter, tell stories to keep the fear and the darkness at bay, and a deep friendship is born. But as the bombs continue to fall and friends begin to flee the country, the girls must face the fact that their lives will never be the same again.

    This poignant debut novel reveals just what it's like to grow up in a city that is slowly disappearing in front of your eyes, and how in the toughest times, children can build up the greatest resilience.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOneworld Publications
    Release dateMay 3, 2018
    ISBN9781786073235
    Author

    Shahad Al Rawi

    Shahad Al Rawi was born in Baghdad in 1986. She is a writer and novelist. The Baghdad Clock is her first novel, and it went through three printings in the first months of publication. She is currently completing a PhD in Anthropology in Dubai.

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    Reviews for The Baghdad Clock

    3.5/5

    38 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Behind the scenes of a war.After a slow start, this became an interesting and revealing narrative about the effects of two Gulf wars and the attached sanctions, on the Iraqi civilian population. Narrated from the point of view of a young girl who grows up in a disintegrating Baghdad, it becomes clear just how insidious the sanctions were, effectively causing more destruction than the missiles.The voice of the un-named narrator begins as that of a child, which initially had me concerned that this was going to be the writing style for the whole book. Thankfully, the narrator matures and with it her narrative voice. She introduces us to some of the characters of the village, the wacky, the sad and the ever hopeful. I will never forget the watch-marks bitten on the wrists of children by Uncle Shawkat, or his loyal pet dog, Biryad.As the young girl and her friend Nadia grow into teenagers, they share their loves and loses, until the inevitable time when the black Chevrolet comes to the door and spirits them away with their families to a safer haven, one that will never truly be Home.It's a raw commentary on the other side of war, the one that we didn't see from TV reports and newspapers. This is a book that should be widely read and now that it has been awarded the Edinburgh Book Festival's First Book Award, this will begin to happen.Shahad Al Rawi spent her childhood in Baghdad, reaching secondary school before moving with her parents to Syria. I'm glad to say she then moved to Dubai, where I am looking forward to hearing her speak at our Literary Festival in March.
    • 3/5
      The Middle East has been consistently in the news for decades now. Refugees continue to flee the war torn countries of the region. We've learned how to pronounce the names of the countries but what do we really know of the people who live in there? Shahad al Rawi's novel, The Baghdad Clock, takes readers into one Baghdad neighborhood from 1991 at the beginning of the first Gulf War through two young girls' growing up and becoming woman all the way to the present day.The unnamed narrator meets her friend Nadia one evening when they are in the neighborhood air raid shelter with their mothers. The two of them become inseparable and continue to go to school, play, and explore even in the shadow of the war raining down on their country. They grow, they fall in love with boys, and they watch as long time neighbors slowly emigrate to find safety and security away from the Iraq of bombs and economic sanctions. The novel is a look at everyday life in Baghdad, a chronicle of a neighborhood slowly losing its sense of community, and an account of two friends coming of age and trying to preserve the memories of the people and events of their youth.There is no real unifying plot other than the changing of the neighborhood and the narrator's musings on it and the people she knows. Aspects of magical realism are threaded through the narrative with the narrator being able to share Nadia's dreams, with the neighborhood portrayed as a ship, and in the person of an old soothsayer who appears in the neighborhood in various guises throughout the novel to predict the future and to warn the inhabitants. The tales of the individual neighbors makes them fully rounded, real characters and it clearly diminishes the neighborhood as each of them eventually climbs into the cars that whisk them away to another life. This particular neighborhood in Baghdad is very obviously meant to mirror the disintegration of Iraqi society as a whole as the wars go on and different sorts of people, never described and never joining the fabric of the existing place, move into the abandoned homes. The daily tragedy of war is very evident, especially in the short history of the neighborhood the girls write, even if they aren't chronicling deaths but rather defections and disappearances. The story was slow, perhaps because it was fairly directionless, and the use of the Book of the Future, set in the present (or near enough) and then moving into future predictions at the end was at odds with the tone of the previous 3/4 of the novel. The writing was sometimes a bit confusing, whether as a result of this being a translation or simply transferred from the original it's hard to say. It does offer a perspective on daily life in Iraq that those of us in the West rarely see and as such will be of interest to those curious about this part of the world.
    • 3/5
      I am not particularly a fan of magical realism so I found this book to be a struggle. The style is not my favorite, the characters were confusing (my own problem since I am not used to names like these) and the jumping around in time/dreams/characters made this into a book I simply could not connect with.
    • 4/5
      Oh, where to even begin with The Baghdad Clock. This is one of those books that comes across your path and is instantly a gift.

      The Baghdad Clock has a voice that is part innocent and part poetic. It is heartbreaking but is also a display of strength and courage from a voice that is new to me, one I rarely find represented. I instantly fell in love with this voice and the story of two Iraqi girls who first formed their friendship during the 1991 Gulf War. Even through sanctions, new threats of wars, maturing and falling in love and families migrating, these girls build a beautiful bond that the reader can't help but feel a part of.

      But this book is so much more than a tale of friendship. It is the coming of age in a war torn neighborhood that up until now seemed like worlds away. It is watching your friends, your family, the people you grew up, and your home face the devastation of multiple wars, international sanctions, and knowing when it is time to leave.

      Shahad Al Rawi has written a story that feels so incredibly honest that I was left reeling with emotions after the last page.
    • 4/5
      Wow! This book was so enjoyable books to read. This was such an emotional roller coaster for me, so poignant. And I learned a lot about Gulf War. I definitely recommend this book. Thanks Library Things and Oneworld Publications for an ARC copy of this book and for an opportunity to read it.
    • 3/5
      This was an immersion in magical realism Iraqi style (Gabriel Garcia Marquez was heavily referenced). A young girl meets her best friend while huddled in an air raid shelter in 1991. The nameless protagonist can see her friend's dreams. There's a soothsayer who visits the neighbourhood who may or may not be a vagrant or a mail man or someone else. The novel covers the girls growing up, going to high school and university and finding love, mostly on the backdrop of war and/or sanctions. The neighbourhood anchors the story, with vivid personalities and wrenching sadness as families leave one by one to make new lives in other countries.
    • 4/5
      Childhood is seen through a fluttering curtain, with embellishments, tears, and blind spots. Al Rawi has shown us glimpses of an Iraqi childhood with friendships, family, community, that are glimpsed clearly in moments, hidden in others. The times between war allow us a normalcy and comfort with two young friends, our narrator and Nadia. We root for their academic hopes, romantic dreams, familial stability, even as we brace for the inevitable we know will turn their world upside down. Would that time stand still for these ordinary moments on ordinary days and let all children play and grow with no looming shadow of war.
    • 5/5
      this isn’t a review; it’s just random thoughts about an amazing book written by a woman who still isn’t old enough to capture so much wisdom in a thin novel.

      I love this book. Maybe it’s because she refers to another book I love, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez. Or maybe it’s because she writes poetic thoughts in prose format that is easier for me to appreciate. Or maybe it’s the neighborhood the narrator and her friends inhabit, though different in many ways from the one I grew up in, where communities are made up of not just those who are related by blood, but by those who are connected–related in that sense–by common experiences. Just like the neighborhood I grew up in.

      But mostly I think it is because I am in awe of her ability to share profound thoughts from the point of view of such a young woman.

      The Baghdad Clock, not surprisingly, is set in Baghdad where the protagonist, a young Iraqi girl, meets Nadia, her best friend, when their families take shelter together during the 1991 Gulf War. But it isn’t a story about the war. It isn’t even about the shelter where they met. It’s the story of childhood friendships and first loves, of becoming adults and of loss: the loss of childhood innocence on one level and the loss of memories through the obliteration of neighborhoods on another.

      The author was born in 1986. She wasn’t even as old as her protagonist when the 1991 Gulf War broke out. The book was published in 2016 when she was only 30. How could she have become so wise in fewer than 30 years? Let me share why I think she is wise.

      At one point the narrator meets a soothsayer who answers her questions about friendship, an especially important topic at a time when both girls know it is likely one of their families will leave Baghdad, leaving the other behind. The soothsayer says,

      You and Nadia do not love each other just for the sake of the deep friendship between you. You love your memories, too.

      Both of you, but especially you, are afraid for these memories, because their passing means ripping up the solid ground under your feet. For those who fear the future, the past is a merciful cave in which people seek shelter when they turn away from the cruelty of the present.
      How could someone so young have learned so much in so little time?

      The soothsayer answers more of the narrator’s questions, “What if there had never been a war? What if the sanctions had not been put in place? What would our lives have been like, and what would Baghdad have become?”

      Listen, my dear. I know you want to say, ‘Were it not for the war and the sanctions, things would have been better for us.’ That might be true, if we were to ignore geography and history. For you are a victim of geography in the first place. Your country isn’t on the Mediterranean where it might breathe the sea air, nor is it in the desert, where it might live on the luxury brought by oil. You live between them, where the bright light of the sun shines down on you all year round . . . Geography is a fate that cannot be escaped, but history is made. Adapt to your geography and change your history . . . [w]eave from its cloth a new garment. Gather the good islands together and leave out the painful ones. There, make a fresh memory, a good space for joy. In short, change the entire culture. Or at least some of it.
      When I read this section, I couldn’t help but think of how it describes the incivility that continues to creep into our lives, especially in social media. The soothsayer explains that those who fear the future turn to the past and see efforts to recreate it as desirable. Yet the soothsayer’s advice is that we need to adapt and change. What brings fear to some is the solution to others. The result–conflict.

      In one of the more contemplative passages, the author says,

      In our neighbourhood, we would describe the best people as being ‘good and shamefaced,’ and whenever I came across someone who did not feel a sense of shame, I would secretly think he was dangerous and wicked. Shame is not a religious or pedagogic quality, nor is it moral principle. It is rather one of the gifts of existence that prevents us from committing travesties against the rights of other people.
      I love this passage because it reminds me of one of the differences between the center of the moral compasses carried in life by Westerners compared to Easterners. As an oversimplification, I repeat what I heard when I first moved to Iran more then 40 years ago: behavior in the West is guilt-based; in the East it is shame-based. We, in the West, think of guilt as something to be avoided, something we don’t ever want to feel. Elsewhere in the world, shame is to be avoided, something others don’t want to feel.

      If I substitute the word “guilt” for “shame” in the above passage, most of us might object to the thought that the best people are “good and guilty.” But if we thought of feeling guilty as a gift, as the narrator describes shame to be, we might all be a bit more compassionate towards one another. It would still be better not to be guilty, just as it is better not to be shameful, but feeling the weight of either guilt or shame should lead us to better behavior.

      Every time I open the book to a random page, I find something I want to share. Instead, I encourage others to read the book.

      I love this book
    • 5/5
      “The Baghdad Clock,” turns life in embattled Iraq into a fantastical world of characters and memories that serve as fuel for those who have lived and loved through the years of war. The book follows two young girls who first meet in a shelter during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and tells the story of their unyielding spirit in the face of a crumbling Iraq.
      Al-Rawi’s reader is immediately drawn into the world she has created with her narrator’s sense of childlike wonder. Through the eyes of a young girl, the reader is invited into a Baghdad one may not have visited before. Along with a best friend named Nadia, the narrator takes the reader on a journey brimming with magical realism, in which reality and dreams are intertwined.
      The author does an incredible job of painting a portrait of a neighborhood in Baghdad, with its ups and downs, its scandals and vibrancy, despite the surrounding planes, rockets and political upheaval. The reader grows with Al-Rawi’s characters, living life with them, losing life with them and navigating through their sorrows and joys. Between the Ma’mun Tower and the Baghdad Clock, first loves are found, school protests are had, honor is upheld and the fear of loneliness is explored through war and harsh sanctions that change the face of the city and the lives within it.

      Due to sanctions, the loss of the neighborhood and its inhabitants, of gardens and roses, of pomegranate trees and orange blossoms, is gradual and inevitable. Life, Al-Rawi writes, withdraws “into distant rooms.” Her narrator’s neighborhood school turns into a military barrack and missile depot. One by one, neighbors leave and friends depart for safer shores. The choice of whether to stay or to go becomes harder as sanctions choke the city.

      Al-Rawi writes beautifully of characters who immediately captivate you — characters who are relatable, but also imbued with a sense of magic. The life she writes of has an ethereal overlay, as if life is about much more than just living through war. In a country so often dehumanized by politics, Al-Rawi reminds us of the stories and people that make Iraq what it is.
    • 5/5
      This is the story of a terrible 30 years, and of the people who suffered both war and privation. It is a story that shows the humanity of ordinary Iraqis, and the horror of what has been inflicted on them. It is a story of the triumph of ordinary people and of hope, in the face of adversity. It is uplifting. It is triumphant because people survive.
      That is what makes this book a must read.
    • 2/5
      The Baghdad Clock begins with a childhood fantasy, quickly transitioning to life in a war zone as the young narrator works to keep the neighborhood’s memories alive. Spanning the Gulf War to Desert Storm and “Bush’s Attack” this story is the unfortunate history many children likely share as neighbors are forced to emigrate from their homes. I originally was drawn to this book as it was compared to The Kite Runner. This comparison led me to disappointment as this novel did not live up to the timeless and moving story captured within The Kite Runner. Translated to English by Luke Leafgren, as was The Kite Runner (although the translators were different), the underlying themes shone through but still seemed to be missing the emotional story encased in The Kite Runner. This book felt like there was interlocking details lost in translation, especially as it surrounded the dreams and fantasies of the book’s narrator. This “lost in translation” element caused the book to lose its cohesiveness and ultimately the transitions from chapter to chapter were not as seamless as I would have liked. *Disclaimer: A review copy of this book was provided via LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.
    • 3/5
      The Baghdad Clock, Shahad Al Rawi I enjoyed reading this book. I kept wanting to pick it up again, each time I put it down which is a sign to me that the book is calling my name, but, if truth be told, I had to reread many a sentence over and over, and even then, I am not sure I got the full meaning of the author’s intent. Whether it was due to the editing or the translation, I do not know. Imagination and magical realism often ran through the pages creating a fantasy which was sometimes difficult to understand or discern its inner meaning.The book had a cryptic quality, as if the author was deliberately composing riddles for the reader to solve. At the same time, alternatively, the prose was lyrical and filled with clarity and simplicity.In shared dreams that defied reality, with a dog that seemed anthropomorphic, and neighbors who behaved oddly, the story plays out as if Iraq is a ship that once rode high, peacefully, upon the water, but was now adrift, tossing and turning and could not be saved. The overarching theme of the story seems to be that war is fruitless with unpredictable results that are often poorly received depending on the vantage point.In the late summer of 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. He was given an ultimatum to leave. Failing that, Iraq would be attacked by United Nations coalition forces, led by the United States. Now, in the novel, it is 1991, and two young girls have met each other in a bomb shelter. They develop a kinship which remains over the next decade+ in Iraq, as they live through war, sanctions and war again, only to, each time, try to pick up and rebuild their lives from the remnants left. Many grow weary of war and the negative changes it brings with it. They move on into an uncertain future, especially this generation that knew of nothing else but chaos in their young lives.Through the eyes of a nameless child, the reader will witness the events of the war and the children’s ability to adjust to it, even as they deal with their fear and their dreams for a future which quickly collapses and reassembles in different forms. They think about philosophical questions, about the purpose of the wars, the accomplishments of the wars and what possible benefits were expected from them besides the inevitable loss of life and destruction of property. As the child ponders life and death, love and hate, fear and courage, the reader will wonder about these things with them. It is a sharp analysis, if not sometimes over my head, of human emotions, survival instincts, methods of coping with stress and dealing with anxious moments and situations beyond our control.On the wings of the dreams and hopes of the young girls and some of the elderly residents of the community, the reader sees life change from hopeful to hopeless and then sometimes, back to hope again, albeit in a different shape, unless hope gives out altogether.The Baghdad clock symbolizes their country and its four faces, its place in the rest of the world. In the end, they lose the clock and their country as the soothsayer predicted, to disaster and exile.
    • 4/5
      With a bird’s-eye-view of war from the ground, from the mouths and hearts of the innocent children experiencing it, The Baghdad Clock is poignant and important. It is lyrically and colorfully written, while it covers the dark atrocities of war. The children are resilient. They adjust to the horrific times, to the disappearing city that once laid before them. Emotionally, my heart ached at times for what these children, what these people, went through. Overall, The Baghdad Clock was a deeply emotional, beautifully-written, thought-provoking read. May we always hear the voices on either side of war. Much appreciation to the publisher & Librarything.com for providing an advance copy to read in exchange for an honest review.