Frankenstein in Baghdad

by Ahmed Saadawi

First published 2018

Hadi scavenges through the wreckage of occupied Baghdad, collecting severed limbs and torn flesh from bomb sites and morgues. This cafe regular has a peculiar mission: he sews the body parts into complete corpses so the government will grant them proper burials. When his latest creation disappears from where he left it, Baghdad erupts in a new kind of terror. Witnesses report unkillable attackers who absorb bullets without falling. The creature Hadi assembled now stalks the streets, feeding on human flesh to sustain its patchwork body. It begins by hunting those responsible for the violence plaguing the city, but its appetite grows beyond any moral boundary. Hadi watches his creation become the very monster Baghdad didn't know it needed to fear, while the city's residents face a horror born from their own destruction.

Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, horror, 21st-century

Vibes: atmospheric, dark, thought-provoking

Tropes: monster, unreliable-narrator

Setting: Baghdad, Iraq

Period: 21st-century

272 pages · Paperback · Oneworld

Content warnings: body-horror, gore, violence

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