Baghdad Noir (Akashic Noir)
Description
Now, one of the world’s most war-torn cities is portrayed through a noir lens in this chilling story collection.
“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
“This anthology’s status as perhaps the first collection of Iraqi crime fiction ever published makes it a landmark.” —Publishers Weekly
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each books 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-town cities is portrayed through 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.
Praise for Baghdad Noir (Akashic Noir)
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
Including literary heavyweights such as Ahmed Saadawi, whose novel Frankenstein in Baghdad was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, Baghdad Noir offers a unique opportunity to explore the inventive genius of various authors and to read haunting stories set in a rich and diverse city.
— Arab News
Baghdad Noir is a monumental achievement for Akashic’s long-running Noir series. The collection goes so far beyond the Iraq most of us have been exposed to over the last twenty years and offers up a vision of this important world city in all its complexity and humanity. Crime fiction may not have a long tradition in Iraqi literature, but the authors assembled here by editor Samuel Shimon embrace the finest noir traditions by shining a critical, incisive light on their city, ravaged by war and discord but full of moments of life and hope, some fulfilled, others crushed. This is a vital book, in every sense of the word.
— CrimeReads, included in The Best International Crime Fiction of 2018
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
Most of the 14 entries in what the editor believes is probably the first collection of Iraqi crime fiction to focus on the aftermath of the 2003 American invasion are by contributors, 10 of them Iraqi, who will be unknown to U.S. readers.
— Publishers Weekly, Fall 2018 Announcements
