Lit in Translation

The Baghdad Clock

ساعة بغداد · Sa'at Baghdad

Shahad Al Rawi (شهد الراوي, born 1986)

Translated by Luke Leafgren

English editions

In English

* Affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate and a Bookshop.org affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases. The price stays the same for you.

In 1991, sheltering from coalition air raids in a Baghdad bunker, a little girl finds her closest friend. Their shared dreams blur into fantasy; a stranger's prophecies about the city set families leaving one by one, and with a third girl they keep a secret register of their street's history so it will not be forgotten. The narrator follows the friends as they grow up, up to the next war and the capital's fall.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Length
259 pages in the original
Genres
Coming of age, War (assigned by AI)
Set in
Iraq, 1991–2003
First published
2016 by Dar al-Hikma
Author's age
30 when first published
ISBN

9781784810856 (original)

9781786073242 (Oneworld Publications, United Kingdom)

9781786074867 (Oneworld Publications, United Kingdom)

More
Wikidata