The Baghdad Clock

The Baghdad Clock is the debut novel of Shahad Al Rawi. It was published in Arabic in 2016 and is a bestseller in Iraq, Dubai and the UAE.  It was published on May 8, 2018 in North America. I received an advanced review copy of the manuscript through the Early Reviewer's Program at Librarything.

The story opens in 1991 during the Gulf War when a young Iraqi girl meets a new friend, Nadia, at an air raid shelter. They become inseparable.  As the city begins to fall and economic sanctions hit their neighbors hard, the girls continue to share their lives with after school play time, parties, first boyfriends and their private thoughts. The main character, who is nameless, has the ability to read Nadia's dreams.  This bit of fantasy is a major part of the book.

Following this story was awkward. Either the writing or the translation was off.  The constant going back and forth to the main character's thoughts and plot action was off-putting.  It made me bored. I just wanted to finish the book as soon as possible.  I kept going back a few pages thinking that I missed action but never did.  The problem was that the main character's thoughts had stopped and plot action had begun again. I also kept looking for the main character's name.  I thought that I missed it and it frustrated me.  It's odd that every neighbor had a name, as well as all of Nadia's family members, but not the main character.

I believe this novel could be the poignant coming of age novel that every reviewer I have read says that it is. The plot itself is poignant.  There were too many problems with the writing or with the translation.  The fact that this book is a bestseller in Islamic Middle Eastern countries may indicate it's a translation issue. However, if the focus was not a coming of a age story between 2 young girls but rather what happened to members of a particular neighborhood during a war, this book would have been more successful for me. This focus seems more appropriate given that the main character provides her thoughts about neighbors as they leave Iraq for a better life elsewhere.  One of the characters who leaves, Uncle Shawkat, has a book called The Baghdad Clock:  The Record of a Neighborhood.

Another odd issue with the book is shown on the copyright page.  It states that Shahad Al Rawi has the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.  Huh??  The moral right? Then it says "Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them."  There was no writing within the book's pages attributed to anyone in particular.  The reader has to assume it all was written by Shahad Al Rawi.  Hmm.

I am a lone reviewer who did not like the book.  I cannot recommend it.