Why a Booktrail?
1991: The real Baghdad as seen through the eyes of those who lived there
The Baghdad Clock
What you need to know before your trail
It’s 1991 and the Gulf War is raging. Two girls, hiding in an air raid shelter, tell stories to keep the fear and the darkness at bay, and a deep friendship is born. And while the city collapses around them, the sanctions bite and friends begin to flee, life goes on. People tend their gardens, go dancing and celebrate weddings, and the girls share their dreams, desires, school routines and first loves.
In her brilliant debut novel, Shahad Al Rawi takes readers beyond the familiar images in the news to show the everyday struggle of Baghdad’s people, revealing the reality of growing up in a war-torn city that’s slowly disappearing in front of your eyes.
Locations
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Baghdad
The children fly in their dreams above the houses of Baghdad, but still in their dreams they go to the shelter
The siren began whaling. I did not like its sounds; no one did.”
After a while, we heard the intense bombardment that followed the siren , violent explosions that came closer little by little, and then began moving away. The ground surged beneath us like a flimsy rug”
Even at that young age, they know they don’t want to live in this kind of world, where people suddenly disappear like their shadows on the wall.
This is a place fortified against the wall. It’s a city where plane and rockets blaze across the sky. Even in their shelter, they explore their world around them. This is the city under war, a country at war with itself through the eyes of two innocent children
The Baghdad Clock
In this gigantic ocean of horizons that stretched far under the light of the setting sun, I saw our neighbourhood as though it were a ship anchored along the shore, a gigantic ship with the Ma’mun Tower in the middle like its tall sail. the Baghdad Clock looked like an anchor thrown on the harbour quay, and the Zawra Tower was like the ship’s bridge, where the captain steered.
The clock is everything to the girls, they try to make sense of how it keeps time, how its shadows move, if it ever gets lonely, what must it see from that great height? It is the symbol of so many things.
Booktrailer Review
Susan:@thebooktrailer
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 of these children make it all the more horrific and that’s why the book should be read slowly to take in the repercussions of what you are reading. When the girls are in the shelter, how they see the burned out city, why they dream about the Baghdad clock…I had tears in my eyes.
The story follows them as they go their own ways but it’s their Baghdad and childhood bond that keeps them close. You should discover this book for yourself without having any ideas of what you might find as this is an experience you won’t have had before and I’m very grateful to One World for having translated this. It did read like a stream of consciousness at times and especially as the girls grow up, but stand back and see the novel for how it shines a light on this part of the world and its people.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Baghdad Clock
Destination : Baghdad Author/Guide: Shahad Al Rawi Departure Time: 1991onwards
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