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The Baghdad Clock

Shahad Al Rawi (Goodreads Author),

Luke Leafgren (Translator)

3.61 · Rating details · 1,635 ratings · 307 reviews

Baghdad, 1991. In the midst of the first Gulf War, a young Iraqi girl huddles with her neighbours in an air raid shelter. There, she meets Nadia. The two girls quickly become best friends and together they imagine a world not torn apart by civil war, sharing their dreams, their hopes and their desires, and their first loves. But as they grow older and the bombs continue to ...more

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Hardcover, 257 pages

Published May 8th 2018 by Oneworld Publications (first published October 10th 2016)

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3.61 ·

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· 1,635 ratings · 307 reviews

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Apr 06, 2018 Paromjit rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-fiction, netgalley

This is a heartbreaking, beautifully expressed, vibrant and poetic coming of age novel depicting the tragedies and horrors of war, including civil war, visited on the city of Baghdad in Iraq. It is observed through the eyes of a child, a young Iraqi girl, growing up in a small neighbourhood, giving us a glimpse into the everyday lives and culture of the city at the beginning of the First Gulf War in 1991. She finds herself in air raid shelters, finding a good and close friend in Nadia, sharing t ...more

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May 18, 2018 Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader rated it really liked it

Recommended to Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader by: Paromjit

Shelves: arcs, kindle-version, 2018-reads, historical-fiction, ew-ew-wishlist

4 resilient stars to The Baghdad Clock! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

This book landed on my radar when my friend, Paromjit, gave it five stars. I had to read it, and it did not disappoint!

It is Baghdad in 1991. Two Iraqi girls become the best of friends while in an air raid shelter. Their hearts are pure and their imaginations dream of a time when war was a distant memory; however, years later, the war is still present in their country.

With a bird’s-eye-view of war from the ground, from the mouths and hearts of the ...more

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Sep 08, 2018 Paltia rated it really liked it

Astonishing writing. Shahad Al Rawi reveals life in the neighborhood during and in between wars. At times it reads like a complex fairy tale. Other times it reads like a diary penned by a sensitive, imaginative adolescent. Horrifying yet hopeful. Stark reality and dreamlike sequences. Please read this book and fall beneath this writer’s magic spell. This book far exceeded my expectations.

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Dec 30, 2016 Maysam Aloush rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Thought provoking, well written, definitely needs another read and discussions! you are talented writer
Thank youuuuuuuuu

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Mar 17, 2018 Jane Rhea rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018, giveaways

I really enjoyed this book. At first I was hesitant because I've been reading a lot of books about war this year, but Al Rawi isn't really writing about war or even about being a refugee. This book has it's own kind of magical realism and philosophy that I found captivating and inspiring. I'm looking forward to reading it again!

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May 07, 2018 Jeanette rated it it was amazing

A very well written novel and one that kept me turning the pages until finished. This is a novel that i hope to read again in the near future. Highly recommended.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers.

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May 07, 2018 Gaele rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-challenges, diverse-reading-challenge, debut-author-reading-challenge, lit-fic, reviewed, 2018-favorites, edelweiss

Unlike anything I have read, there is a lyricism and poetic flow to this tale, narrated by a young Iraqi girl as she remembers her life before and the struggles and changes during the first Iraqi war in 1991. Solidly presented within her neighborhood – we see how lovely and wonderful life was before the bombings started, even with sanctions, there was a sense of community and surety that felt universal – the girls had dreams and stutter moments when encountering boys they liked, danced at weddin Unlike anything I have read, there is a lyricism and poetic flow to this tale, narrated by a young Iraqi girl as she remembers her life before and the struggles and changes during the first Iraqi war in 1991. Solidly presented within her neighborhood – we see how lovely and wonderful life was before the bombings started, even with sanctions, there was a sense of community and surety that felt universal – the girls had dreams and stutter moments when encountering boys they liked, danced at weddings and for no reason at all, and even went on adventures and were able to appreciate the small wonders that are so palpable and present when you are a child. And then – things changed almost overnight…..

Buildings disappear in the middle of the night, bombs are dropping, people are scared – and people are missing. Huddled together for safety our narrator meets Nadia, and the two find comfort in sharing their stories of dreams, hopes and possibilities. Soon best friends, there are few things they haven’t shared: armed soldiers patrolling the streets, neighbors and family gone in an instant, the struggles, fear and even deprivations as war drags on and on.....

Throughout the tale, the use of metaphor, dream interpretation, soothsayers and references to the ‘then’ helped build both the narrative and the sense of place for readers, the then and now, and showing the ease with which the children have adapted to the new normal, while not ever quite understanding the why, resolving the ‘fairness’ of their situation, and even grieving for those lost. With the sense of never-ending conflict and strife that is the overwhelming force in changing and limiting dreams and desires for all, there are decisions about future and past, dream and reality, hopes and potential that present readers with a sense that no child, indeed no people, should have to develop the resiliency shown here. Emotionally the story tears at your heart, while descriptions and a touch of magic seem to weave the story in technicolor tapestry, demanding you read on, understand and experience the world from this new perspective.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at I am, Indeed
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May 13, 2018 Thebooktrail rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-set-in-middle-east, novel-set-in-iraq

Visit the locations in the novel

Why this book works so well is that it’s such a simple and innocent story. Seen through the eyes of two girls as they grow up and start to explore the world, well at least as far as they can in war torn Baghdad, they manage to reveal their dreams, their hopes and their fears as well as acute observations of war. What we read about war sometimes can be gathered in such torrid graphic headlines that it’s there to shock. The lyrical, innocent childhood observations ...more

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May 10, 2018 Mo rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-format-ebook, 2018-contemporary-historical-fictio, 2018-speculative-fiction, 2018-source-lpl, 2018-debut-novels, 2018-translations

“Nadia and I were born during the war with Iran. We got to know each other during Desert Storm. We grew up in the years of the sanctions and the second Gulf War. George Bush and his son, George W. Bush, took turns firing missiles and illegal weapons at our childhood, while Bill Clinton and that old woman Madeleine Albright were satisfied with starving us. And when we grew up, hell sat in wait for us.

“I will trick you with my words and dodge my memories. I will sing and cry; I will dream with Na ...more

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May 21, 2018 Stephanie Jane (Literary Flits) rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-asia

See more of my book reviews on my blog, Literary Flits

The Baghdad Clock is a beautifully magical novel of a girl coming of age in a war-torn city. Through the eyes of our never-named narrator, we see the effects of bombings, a decade of sanctions, and more bombings on a thriving Baghdad neighbourhood as its community slowly splinters and evaporates. I was strongly reminded of South American magical realism at several points so was happy to spot the classic novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude bei See more of my book reviews on my blog, Literary Flits

The Baghdad Clock is a beautifully magical novel of a girl coming of age in a war-torn city. Through the eyes of our never-named narrator, we see the effects of bombings, a decade of sanctions, and more bombings on a thriving Baghdad neighbourhood as its community slowly splinters and evaporates. I was strongly reminded of South American magical realism at several points so was happy to spot the classic novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude being given a role. The Baghdad Clock is a considerably faster read, but I think readers who enjoy Marquez will appreciate Al Rawi too. Concepts such as the neighbourhood being a ship allow for truly effective imaginings and I gave a wry smile at the irony of the emigrating families all leaving in a black Chevrolet - an American car.

I did feel as the story continued that our narrator often felt younger than her years would suggest, but that may be because I am used to reading about protagonists who are overly worldly wise. I can't remember exactly how childish I was in my early teens! The friendship with Nadia is utterly believable and provides such a strong thread for these lives. Al Rawi gives touching details so I felt as though I genuinely saw Baghdad through a child's eyes, which makes her occasional drawing back to reveal the full extent of the suffering caused - especially by the drawn-out years of sanctions - particularly poignant. Neighbourhood characters such Uncle Shawkat and his Kurdish wife, Baji Nadira, are memorable and I was moved by the image of Shawkat continuing to tend the houses of the departed, not knowing whether they would ever return. Seeing the impetus here for what has become a global 'immigration problem' reveals its other side - that of an emigration disaster leaving communities and neighbourhoods destroyed not so much from the physical damage caused by war, but by the gradual exodus of friends, relations and neighbours.

The only part of this book that didn't work for me was the short Future which is kind of an epilogue. Its style felt too different to what had gone before so, while I was interested to see some of what would happen to these characters and how their lives might pan out, I wouldn't have felt anything lost if The Baghdad Clock had ended prior to this final section. I preferred being in the earlier atmosphere and the sudden change felt almost like starting a new book without having taken enough time to reflect on the previous one. ...more

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Dec 30, 2016 Abdalrahman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved this book.so much . The story line, characters, and plot are not my usual reading. That just made it more special. The ending was perfect. Like a beautiful sunset at the end of a perfect day.
Thank you Shahad Al Rawi ..

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Mar 27, 2018 Sheri rated it it was amazing

The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi

Set in war torn Baghdad, 1991 during the Gulf war. A powerful story told in first person perspective, of one girls life during this war torn time. She meets another young girl (Nadia) and become friends. As time goes by, friends and family leave the war torn country, and lives will be forever changed.

Shahad Al Rawi detailed every emotion pulling me deep into the story as if I were there. A thought provoking, intense read that left an impression on my heart. Alt ...more

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May 24, 2018 Reading Fool rated it it was amazing

Shelves: giveaways, 2018

I received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book.

This is a remarkable debut novel about two Iraqi girls who grow up during the first and second Iraqi wars with America. In 1991, Nadia and the storyteller (her name is never revealed as she tells the story) meet in a Baghdad air raid shelter. They are young girls who quickly become best friends. Life under sanctions is difficult and slowly their neighbors and friends emigrate to other countries to escape. This story captures two teenagers' lives a ...more

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Apr 04, 2018 Diana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Can you imagine what it would be like if war broke out in your country? Imagine how your life would change. Think about what it would be like to watch neighbors disappear, buildings go up in smoke and armed soldiers start patrolling your streets. Sounds like a nightmare, right? However, this is a reality for many people around the world. In this story, we get to see the impact of war on the lives of residents of a small neighborhood in Baghdad.

I don’t think that I got to find out the name of the Can you imagine what it would be like if war broke out in your country? Imagine how your life would change. Think about what it would be like to watch neighbors disappear, buildings go up in smoke and armed soldiers start patrolling your streets. Sounds like a nightmare, right? However, this is a reality for many people around the world. In this story, we get to see the impact of war on the lives of residents of a small neighborhood in Baghdad.

I don’t think that I got to find out the name of the narrator. However, readers get to know that she is a young Iraqi girl. She introduces us to her neighborhood during the first Gulf War in 1991. Through her narration, we get to meet other residents of the town. Characters that stood out for me include Nadia, Ahmed, Uncle Shakwat, Biryad and Farouq. The narrator tells us a little about each of them and their lives. Their personalities were all so well developed that they come alive through the story. I found myself thinking of them like real people. You know how you get to know a character so well that you know what is and isn’t something they would do?

Life in Baghdad when there was peace was so beautiful despite the international sanctions. I enjoyed reading about the girls, their dreams for the future and life experiences. I couldn’t stop smiling when they first met boys that they liked. I loved all their adventures, their night escapades visiting the Baghdad clock, the dancing and description of Nadia’s love for the rain. I was enchanted by it all and so when the war came, I was also devastated by how it touched their lives, leaving havoc in its wake.

This wasn’t an easy read. The narrative uses different stylistic devices. I think what I liked most was personification of Biryad, the neighborhood’s popular dog. I am yet to read another book where a pet is so well developed as a character. I mean, I can still visualize the dog dancing at weddings. There were also instances where fantasy was used in the storytelling. Metaphors like the sinking ship depicting the destroyed city were also used in building the narrative. The story had a lot of cultural nuances like soothsayers were used to foretell oncoming changes. Dreams and reality were also interspersed throughout the story. I struggled through the first chapters but after that, I really appreciated the writing and how poetic it was.

This was a wonderful, well-written, thought provoking read. It was heartbreaking at the same time. I have no doubt that these characters and story will stay with me for long. Having read this book, I now really want to read A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The MC kept referring to this book in a way that made me curious enough to push it up my TBR. If you are looking for a coming of age story, well-written, thought provoking literary fiction then The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi is the book that you need to read. ...more

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Sep 13, 2018 Lisa Jensen rated it it was amazing

What a storyline. Thinking of characters the entire day after finishing on the train this morning. Shahad Al Rawi will have my attention for a long time to come. As well will this incredible, fantastic, sad, deep, narrative of its main plotline. I will recommend this book to my friends and family and strangers and future robots.

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May 23, 2018 Rebecca rated it it was amazing

Books like this are why it’s so important to have English translations of Arabic literature. Too many people don’t see the humanity in “others”, and this beautifully written book illuminates our commonality, and through this readers can understand better the devastating effects of war and sanctions on people living in places many cannot even find on a map.

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Feb 07, 2018 Margaret rated it really liked it

Shelves: first-reads

Beautiful book, very charming but ever so slightly devastating too. A great insight into a time and place, I would possibly have given it five stars but felt like some parts should have been explored more deeply.

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May 05, 2018 thewanderingjew rated it liked it · review of another edition

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 difficu 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. ...more

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May 08, 2018 Eleanor rated it liked it

Shelves: work-heywood-hill

Shahad Al Rawi's debut novel, The Baghdad Clock, isn't metaphorically titled: there really is a large landmark clock in Baghdad with four faces. It perches on top of a tall stem, visible from all directions, like a kind of Martian Big Ben. In the novel, it serves as a place for the unnamed narrator and her best friend Nadia to meet up with the boys they love. It also serves as the title of the book the two girls decide to write: a history or memorial of their neighbourhood, which is increasingly ...more

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Jul 11, 2018 Joanne Rixon rated it it was amazing

THE BAGHDAD CLOCK is a tender, romantic, complex story about a neighborhood, about growing up a girl in a time of war, about the delicate bonds of love and friendship that connect people who must scatter to the winds to try to escape a violence that comes from the sky.

It's also a story about dreams and memory, about time and its fragmentation, about hiding in a bomb shelter and planning to hide in a bomb shelter and scouting out a bomb shelter only to stumble across the seer who tells you your ...more

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Jan 22, 2019 Claire McAlpine rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, around-the-world, women-in-translation, translated, around-the-world-2019, iraqi-literature

Slightly surreal, nostalgic portrayal of a neighbourhood in Baghdad, of a childhood and early youth lived under the shadow of war, shared by a girl of that neighbourhood who refuses to depict her childhood through the lens of suffering and devastation and thus shares their humanity, their connections, their relations and when she comes close to anything that might be traumatic, lifts off into dreams and the imagination, into other realms, soothed by the souls of the departed, the wisdom of her i Slightly surreal, nostalgic portrayal of a neighbourhood in Baghdad, of a childhood and early youth lived under the shadow of war, shared by a girl of that neighbourhood who refuses to depict her childhood through the lens of suffering and devastation and thus shares their humanity, their connections, their relations and when she comes close to anything that might be traumatic, lifts off into dreams and the imagination, into other realms, soothed by the souls of the departed, the wisdom of her intuition creating metaphors in her sleep.

Her resilience isn't defiant, it's like a hardy shrub that wants to bloom even in the harshest environment and finds refuge in the imagination. One of her recurring dreams that she enters is the idea that they are living on a ship, one evening the Captain tries to answer her many questions.

Listen my dear. The ship is an idea in your head and I am an idea in the head of the ship. Small ideas usually have delicate wings and when they lose their value on the earth, they fly up into space. The world we live in is just an idea made by the imagination of an inventive creator, and when he found it to be complicated, he began explaining it by means of other, smaller ideas...
We are prisoners of our imaginations, and our experiences in the world of reality consist only of ideas.
And don't tell anyone, because people only believe things that come independently to their minds. Yet they don't know where the mind is to be found.

She doesn't understand the captains words, but knew he was telling her the truth.

Sometimes there are things we do not understand, and we know their meaning, not through words but rather, the meaning is already inside us before others talk to us about it. Some meanings exist inside us but are sleeping. Then words that we understand come and wake us up.

We get to know the families who live and have lived in this neighbourhood, watching them grow and evolve, sharing those moments when they grow out of girlhood and begin to blossom, wondering why the words that boy they'd never paid much attention to whispered in their ear, made them feel so strange inside. We are drawn into their lives until the black Chevrolet arrives and one by one they depart for elsewhere.

Initially one of the residents known as Uncle Shawkat, acts as protector of the abandoned homes, keeping away unwanted racketeers, he writes the names of the departed on the doors, the dates they lived there, and This House is Not for Sale. He too has suffered on account of his wife having left without him, so finds solace in a stray dog he rescued from one of the houses, as much a part of the neighbourhood as them all, with his uncanny way of predicting who will leave next.

Memories are narrated through her friendship with Nadia, who she meets and sleeps next to in the air raid shelter in 1991, they tell each other stories and comfort each other in what becomes the beginning of a long and deep friendship that sustains them through the things that bring discontent, the sanctions, another war, the threat of separation.

It's an unusual novel in it's determination not to resort to pessimism, despite the suffering and loss that is around them, instead it recalls memories of childhood and growing up, of friendship and budding love, of mother's sitting around listening to the predictions and advice of the soothsayer.

Nadia and I were born during the war with Iran. We got to know each other during Desert Storm. We grew up in the years of the sanctions and the second Gulf War. George Bush and his son George W. Bush, took turns firing missiles and illegal weapons at our childhood, while Bill Clinton and that old woman Madeleine Albright were satisfied with starving us. And when we grew up, hell sat in wait for us.

It is a lament for days gone by, remembered by the young not the old, who know their children will grow up in other lands, other cultures, with little knowledge of their forebears, of their ways, their neighbourhood, the friendships that shaped them.

We are the last teardrop aboard the ship, the last smile, the last sigh, the last footstep on its ageing pavement. We are the last people to line their eyes with its dust. We are the ones who will tell its full story. We will tell it to neighbours' children born in foreign countries, to their grandchildren not yet born - we, the witnesses of everything that happened.

...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Zaya rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved every part of this book! it kept me second guessing what was going to happen. definitely gave me a few muddied in some parts! highly recommend!

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Dec 30, 2016 Maysam Aloush rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Thought provoking, well written, definitely needs another read and discussions! you are talented writer.thank you

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Jul 16, 2018 Nichole rated it really liked it

Shelves: librarything

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 w ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Joanne Lewis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I've seen comparisons made with this novel to Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' and having read it, it's easy to see why. The writing style is very similar; evocative, informative and incredibly poignant.

The story primarily tells the tale of two young Iraqi girls who find themselves caught up in the turmoil of the Gulf war and shows the conflict through their eyes: how their lives are changed and how it impacts on their loved ones around them.

The beauty of telling a tale through the eyes of a ...more

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Jul 25, 2018 TheCrazyWorldOfMarie rated it it was amazing

"To be honest, it is not that people forgot her, but rather they got used to forgetting her absence. It was not that they forgot her as a person. There are people in the neighborhood—indeed, in every place around the world—about whom forgetting means that we remember their absence, and this absence takes the place of their presence in our lives."

The Baghdad Clock

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Dec 30, 2016 Abdalrahman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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Oct 23, 2018 Kes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, read-2018

This is a beautifully written book describing the disintegration of a neighbourhood due to war. Told from a first-person perspective, the unnamed narrator grows up in a middle-class neighbourhood. Her best friend is Nadia, a girl her age.

What makes this book beautiful is the prose. Take:

Everything our eyes touch is just an idea. There's nothing real about reality. We are prisoners of our imaginations, and our experiences in the world of reality consist only of ideas. All of existence is an assem

Everything our eyes touch is just an idea. There's nothing real about reality. We are prisoners of our imaginations, and our experiences in the world of reality consist only of ideas. All of existence is an assembly of ideas. That is the sole truth. Don't believe anything else. And don't tell anyone, because people only believe things that come independently to their minds. Yet they don't know where the mind is to be found. There's never a day when they ask themselves, "Do I actually posses a thing called the mind? What is it shaped like? What's its colour?" The mind, my little one, is another idea. A complicated idea made of other ideas as though they were real.

As the neighbours leave, the social memory of the neighbourhood disappears. As the soothsayer says:

"None of you has any future at all in this place," he repeated. He went on to add, "A man lives in this world with two fates. The first is his individual date, and the second is his fate with his compatriots, for a man cannot live alone. But it is first necessary that he live, that he survive, that he exist. Then he will meet those with whom he will live."

We also see the narrator growing up:

To stumble and fall when you are a college student is not the same as when you are in primary or secondary school. Childhood is a time for experiments, when we learn how to get back up quickly after a fall. As we get older, we learn that we are never supposed to stumble. Thus, with the passage of time, we lose the freedom even to trip.

And her increasing awareness of the past:

I do not want to enter the future. I am afraid of the past disappearing. I am afraid of the unknown. The future is open to all possibilities, and each possibility on the horizon these days frightens me. There are no miracles that the future will realise. It is a sick old man leaning on the crutch of the past he comes towards us.

The realised gradual disintegration is paralleled by Uncle Shawkat: (view spoiler) As the narrator observes in the last scene:

My heart waved to the black statue of Biryad as he raised his white tail in grief at his desolation. My heart waved at our house, our garden, the wall around them, our windows, and at a small cat jumping now from the wall to the abandoned house. Here is Ma'mun Tower. There is the tower in Al-Zawra. The ship is ready to welcome new travellers aboard. The land does not move on with those who loved it and lived their years there. It suffers in silence and preserves them in memory.

I loved this quote about the nation too:

What was the middle class? How did we know if someone belonged to the middle class? This was one of the riddles that confused me. Even when I asked my father, "Are we in the middle class?" and he answered, "Yes, because I'm a university professor, and your mother has a master's degree in engineering. We are not rich, but at the same time, we are not poor. We are children of the state, and if our class disappears, the state becomes a broken machine."

"What about the poor people, father? Aren't they children of the state too?"

He was silent for a while and then looked at me, displeased with my question because fathers need to have answers for every question. "The poor are the children of the nation," he told me.

This is a beautiful book, well worth reading. ...more

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Jun 21, 2018 AYA AYOUT rated it it was amazing

I literally just finished this book and it's hard to see through the tears in my eyes. What a magnificent story. Shahad Al Rawi has created a masterpiece with this book. My heart broke a ten times during my journey through the pages. Just have tissues on hand.

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Feb 13, 2018 Dora Okeyo rated it liked it

I loved the plot of this book, but the greatest struggle seems to have been for the narrator to find the voice that would clearly bring out the story. It felt as though the narrator oscillated between a naive child and an adult, mixing up tenses and getting the reader into a fairy-like trance and this made reading this book quite difficult.
There are however very strong characters who represent the story, and to be honest had the narrator simply told me about Uncle Shawkat and his dog, then I'd h ...more

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Times Literary Supplement : One thousand and one	3	16	Oct 04, 2018 10:48AM
CLARE ROBERTS REVIEWS: THE BAGHDAD CLOCK	1	15	Sep 26, 2018 01:10AM
CLARE ROBERTS REVIEWS: THE BAGHDAD CLOCK	1	12	Sep 26, 2018 01:08AM
The National: The Baghdad Clock is a compelling tale of two girls' journey to adulthood	1	39	May 27, 2018 12:26AM
وكالة انباء الرأي العام : قبل إعلان البوكر 2018.. شهد الراوي: لهذا أرتبك قراء رواية "ساعة بغداد"	1	39	Apr 29, 2018 04:46AM
صحيفة الأيام: ساعة بغداد لشهد الراوي .. طفلة تسرد الحكايات وتكبر دون أن تغادرها الحرب! 2018-04-24	1	29	Apr 29, 2018 04:40AM
صحيفة الحياة ـ لندن . كنب خالد الحروب : «ساعة بغداد»... بأوقات مختلفة	1	29	Apr 21, 2018 03:14AM

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About Shahad Al Rawi

Shahad Al Rawi

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Quotes from The Baghdad Clock

“نحن لا نخاف من الماضي لان كل ما يمكن ان يحدث قد حدث فيه و اصبح بمتناول ذكرياتنا نحن نخشى المستقبل” — 25 likes

“سيأتي المستقبل بكل وقاحة ، و يجعل منا جيلا قديما ، بأغان قديمة ، و أزياء قديمة ، و لهجة هي الاخرى قديمة ، ياالهي نحن نكبر ايضا ، لقد شاغلتنا الحروب و نسينا اننا نكبر ، الحروب الحديثة تبقى مراهقة ونحن نتقدم في العمر الصواريخ فتية ونحن نمضي في السنوات” — 25 likes

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