A Stranger in Baghdad
A Novel
Published on 16. May 2023
Book
Hardback
444 pages
978-1-64903-286-7 (ISBN)
Description
WINNER OF THE 2024 SHARJAH AWARD FOR THE BEST INTERNATIONAL FICTION
NAMED ONE OF '51 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023' (WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS)
LONGLISTED FOR THE BRIDPORT NOVEL AWARD
"A stirring novel about a family."-World Literature Today
An intergenerational drama rendered in beautiful prose featuring the struggles of a mother and daughter to navigate as outsiders in Baghdad and London
"Who would be charmed by tales of life in the beautiful old house on the banks of the Tigris-looted now no doubt, its shutters torn and the courtyard strewn with mattresses?"
One night in 2003, Anglo-Iraqi psychiatrist Mona Haddad has a surprise visitor to her London office, an old acquaintance Duncan Claybourne. But why has he come? Will his confession finally lay bare what happened to her family before they escaped Iraq?
Their stories begin in 1937, when Mona's mother Diane, a lively Englishwoman newly married to Ibrahim, an ambitious Iraqi doctor, meets Duncan by chance. Diane is working as a nanny for the Iraqi royal family. Duncan is a young British Embassy officer in Baghdad. When the king dies in a mysterious accident, Ibrahim and his family suspect Diane of colluding with Duncan and the British.
Summoning up the vanished world of mid-twentieth-century Baghdad, Elizabeth Loudon's richly evocative story of one family calls into question British attitudes and policies in Iraq and offers up a penetrating reflection on cross-cultural marriage and the lives of women caught between different worlds.
NAMED ONE OF '51 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023' (WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS)
LONGLISTED FOR THE BRIDPORT NOVEL AWARD
"A stirring novel about a family."-World Literature Today
An intergenerational drama rendered in beautiful prose featuring the struggles of a mother and daughter to navigate as outsiders in Baghdad and London
"Who would be charmed by tales of life in the beautiful old house on the banks of the Tigris-looted now no doubt, its shutters torn and the courtyard strewn with mattresses?"
One night in 2003, Anglo-Iraqi psychiatrist Mona Haddad has a surprise visitor to her London office, an old acquaintance Duncan Claybourne. But why has he come? Will his confession finally lay bare what happened to her family before they escaped Iraq?
Their stories begin in 1937, when Mona's mother Diane, a lively Englishwoman newly married to Ibrahim, an ambitious Iraqi doctor, meets Duncan by chance. Diane is working as a nanny for the Iraqi royal family. Duncan is a young British Embassy officer in Baghdad. When the king dies in a mysterious accident, Ibrahim and his family suspect Diane of colluding with Duncan and the British.
Summoning up the vanished world of mid-twentieth-century Baghdad, Elizabeth Loudon's richly evocative story of one family calls into question British attitudes and policies in Iraq and offers up a penetrating reflection on cross-cultural marriage and the lives of women caught between different worlds.
Reviews / Votes
"An intimate, intricate portrait of how people's lives are jostled and remade . . . an engrossing read."-Washington Independent Review of Books"Loudon's writing is both vivid and thought-provoking, capturing the emotional depth of her characters as well as the historical and political realities of Iraq. A Stranger in Baghdad is a novel that will stay with readers long after they have finished reading it."-Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World
"A stirring novel about a family-and their involvement in Iraqi and British politics-who resist difficult times in Iraq, including political changes that have defined and highlighted their lives."-World Literature Today
"Diane, a young English nurse, marries Ibrahim, an Iraqi doctor, and returns with him to Baghdad in 1937 to live in his family house on the banks of the Tigris. The couple raise two sons-Ramzi, an air force pilot, and Ziad, a poet-and daughter, Mona, torn between her English and Iraqi heritage. . . .This story of heartbreak and perseverance illustrates the difficult choices people face when they are swept up in the capricious flow of history."-AramcoWorld
"The mastery of this novel is that the author gives equal importance to all the intricacies that she writes."-Middle East Monitor
"This intergenerational drama is deftly written with graceful prose and psychological acuity. . . . Loudon pens the history of Western involvement in Iraq, dating back to the 1930s, with stunning acumen and imagination."-The New Arab
"A crisis of family and identity . . . recommend[ed]."-Enterprise
"[A] sweeping debut novel. . . . a meditation on the impact of colonialism"-Daily Hampshire Gazette
"A haunting, beautifully written book about twentieth century Baghdad and the long aftermath of colonialism. Full of subtle, empathetic details that ring like bells, intricately plotted with unforgettable twists, this book will stay with you long after you think you finished it."-Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey
"A Stranger in Baghdad is vivid and fascinating. There is an elegance to the writing which makes every page distinctive. I found it completely enthralling."-Lissa Evans, author of Crooked Heart
"Original, beautifully written and intriguing. Elizabeth Loudon is an exciting new voice."-Katie Fforde, author of Stately Pursuits
"A page-turner that is also full of marvellous description and atmosphere. It feels beautifully true and of its time but with a contemporary sensibility. The conflict between Britain and Iraq at a political and a family level is brilliantly done, with the cross-cutting allegiances dividing and uniting in a web of love, ambition and lies."-Sofka Zinovieff, author Putney
"An intriguing and thoughtfully worked examination of one family's cross-cultural collisions between Britain and Iraq."-Justin Marozzi, author Baghdad and Islamic Empires
"The story of Diane and Ibrahim and their torn loyalties to family and nation, and how their children grow up in post-royalist police-state Iraq, is told with mesmerizing power. Elizabeth Loudon's mastery of the historical, cultural as well as psychological details of such a narrative is truly moving."-Rana Haddad, author of The Unexpected Love Objects of Dunya Noor
"Intriguing and atmospheric"-Alice Jolly, author of Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
American University in Cairo Press
Product notice
With printed dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
712 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-64903-286-7 (9781649032867)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Elizabeth Loudon is a former college lecturer and charity development consultant. She has an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MA in English from Cambridge University, and has taught at Smith, Amherst, and Williams Colleges. She's published fiction and memoir in the Denver Quarterly, INTRO, North American Review, and Gettysburg Review, among others, and received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship. She drew on her experiences traveling in Iraq and Lebanon in the 1970s when writing A Stranger in Baghdad, her first novel. It was longlisted for the Bridport Novel Award and won the Stroud Book Festival Fiction Competition. She lives in London.