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    Baghdad Noir
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    Baghdad Noir
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    Baghdad Noir
    Ebook334 pages4 hours

    Baghdad Noir

    By Akashic Books

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "Among them these writers encompass, if not a Baghdad entire, then at least a Baghdad of diverse experiences and perspectives, and absolutely a Baghdad focused on the Arabic world and not the Western."
    --NPR Books

    "Characters in this collection are frequently on the receiving end of unpleasant epiphanies. And as this engaging group of stories amply demonstrates, betrayal--whether by authorities, religious leaders, neighbors, colleagues, or liberators--is a subject that Iraqis know all too well."
    --Los Angeles Review of Books

    "This anthology's status as perhaps the first collection of Iraqi crime fiction ever published makes it a landmark."
    --Publishers Weekly

    "Baghdad Noir, edited by Samuel Shimon as part of the Akashic Noir series, is an anthology of crime stories exploring contemporary life in the capital city, and the effect of Sadaam Hussein's regime, U.N. sanctions, the fracturing of Iraqi society during U.S. occupation and the war waged by ISIS. In true noir fashion, these stories are tantalizing whodunnits that reveal the daily struggles of regular people against the surreal backdrop of kidnappings and car bombs."
    --Shelf Awareness for Readers, included in "From My Shelf" column

    "A riveting collection of stories by writers based in Iraq and abroad, edited by Samuel Shimon."
    --Kirkus Reviews, featured in Radha Vatsal's International Crime Fiction Column, "Is Noir Possible in Iraq? On International Crime Fiction, Part I"

    "The overall effect of this gathering of stories is kaleidoscopic: shifting fragments that, coming together in the collection, create a sense of Baghdad's uneasily beating heart...It is a superbly multidimensional, many-voiced, defiant collection."
    --Banipal

    Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, one of the world's most war-torn cities is portrayed though a noir lens in this chilling story collection.

    Brand-new stories by: Sinan Antoon, Ali Bader, Mohammed Alwan Jabr, Nassif Falak, Dheya al-Khalidi, Hussain al-Mozany, Layla Qasrany, Hayet Raies, Muhsin al-Ramli, Ahmed Saadawi, Hadia Said, Salima Salih, Salar Abdoh, and Roy Scranton.

    From the introduction by Samuel Shimon:

    While all Iraqis will readily agree that their life has always been noir, the majority of the stories in Baghdad Noir are set in the years following the American invasion of 2003, though one story is set in 1950 and three are set in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet it is this recent history of Iraq--over the last few decades--that serves to inform its present...Cementing the destruction of Iraqi life was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But that was hardly the end of Iraq's noir story. In April 2003, the US invasion, though it precipitated the end of Saddam's dictatorial rule, killed off any possibility of a secular, modern Iraq once and for all.

    Taken as a whole, the stories in Baghdad Noir testify to the enduring resilience of the Iraqi spirit amid an ongoing, real-life milieu of despair that the literary form of noir can at best only approximate. Yet the contributions here manage to hold their own as individual stories, where the rich traditions of intersecting cultures transcend the immediate political reality--even while being simultaneously informed by it. Much like the diverse tapestry of cultures that join together on the banks of the Tigris to form the City of Peace, Baghdad Noir reveals that there's nothing monolithic or ordinary about the voices of its writers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAkashic Books
    Release dateAug 7, 2018
    ISBN9781617756542
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Baghdad Noir

    3.5/5

    19 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Baghdad Noir is another short story collection in Akaschic's long series of story collections set in various cities around the world. This time around, the stories all center on Baghdad and its outskirts, and thirteen of the collection's fourteen stories are written by Iraqi authors. As in all short story collections I've ever read, the stories can be a little hit-or-miss depending on the taste of the individual reader, but as a whole, Baghdad Noir is well worth reading.The stories focus on everything from everyday life to the intrigues and dangers common to war torn cities around the world, and the writers do a good job in capturing the atmosphere within which all their mysteries and crimes take place. One of the more interesting stories, precisely because it focuses on a period seldom captured in fiction today, is set in 1950. That story, "Baghdad House," though, has a bit of a nebulous endings and is not among my favorites, as it turns out.My favorites are "Jasim's File," a story with a bit of a twist at the end about a man who escapes from a mental institution when the building is hit in during a firefight, and "Baghdad on Borrowed Time," a well crafted story about someone taking revenge on numerous members of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. I also like the cleverness of the one story in the book by a non-Iraqi, American Roy Scranton, called "Homecoming," another story of revenge and murder - a combination that I can well imagine occurs in Baghdad today way more than anyone would like to think.
    • 3/5
      In the introduction to Baghdad Noir Samuel Shimon states that Iraq does not traditionally have Noir as a genre and the authors in this book had to be fed examples (specifically a translation of a Maggie Estep story from an earlier volume). This shows often throughout the book.That's not to say that the stories are bad, but that they feel uneven and at times unsure of themselves. I've read most of this series and often come out of the books with a favorite story, but I didn't feel a standout in this one. They were all just "ok"
    • 3/5
      Overall I thought the anthology was average. A few of the stories seemed to be just going through the motions, but three stood out above the others.Hayet Raies' "The Fear of Iraqi Intelligence" blended young romance with the secret police. The potent combination makes for great noir.Hussain al-Mozany's "Empty Bottles" is the type of noir where where the reader isn't sure what's real or not, as the protagonist pursues the man who killed a neighbor of his. He personally witnessed the murder as a young child and it has haunted him his entire life.Roy Scranton's "Homecoming" is a revenge tale I could see coming from a distance, but the joy (as a reader) was seeing how it would get put together and whether he would pull it off.
    • 4/5
      Baghdad Noir is a really great collection of short stories in the noir genre. I believe this is the 6th book in Akashic Books noir series that I've read, and it is top-notch, exceeded only by Helsinki Noir. The stories here are universally tight, i.e. hardly anything appears within a story that it not essential to it. I particularly liked when a story took an unexpected turn, none of which appeared contrived. Baghdad is an ancient city with a rich and complex history, and the authors contained in this volume make the city itself as central to their storylines as the characters and events of the stories. I greatly enjoyed this book.
    • 4/5
      Having read numerous books in the Akashic Noir series, I, of course, have favorites, but even when I feel a book has not wholly captured my attention, I come away having learned something about the city featured. Baghdad Noir was particularly eye-opening and informative. The city and its inhabitants became alive and the choice of writers, their subjects, and the settings were varied. I enjoyed Samuel Shimon's selections, and felt each one had a definite atmospheric and noirish feel. Baghdad Noir is a book I would recommend.
    • 4/5
      Most of the stories in this book are written by Iraqis and seem to rely on a common understanding of Iraq generally and Baghdad in particular. There are gangsters, corruption and other criminal acts, with violence of various kinds happening throughout. There is a strong sense that actions are happening just off-camera - it frequently feels like characters are subject to events just beyond their control or understanding, without a lot of background provided to give the reader a better grasp of what's going on in the characters' worlds than the characters themselves have. The major exception is the story written by the American contributor, which is so different that it might as well be in a different universe. Possibly assuming that his audience is American and therefore has a much lower grasp of reality and geography in Iraq, the American story name-drops a large number of cities and locations, while none of the other stories are written that way.The stories themselves are, as could be expected, mixed - some good, some intriguing, some neither of those. My personal favorite of the lot is Jasim's File - I won't spoil it, but it's based on very real events and also one of the most disturbing amongst a number of unsettling stories.
    • 4/5
      Finally got around to reading this one, it's been sitting on my shelf way to long. The 'City' Noir series by Akashic books have all been good and stirring. At least all the ones I've read so far. This one was a little more disturbing than others, because many of them felt more like someone relating a true story, which made those one feel much creepier. For anyone reading this series, I think this one is must read.