Frankenstein In Baghdad Research Articles

“Cauldron of Conspiracy”: Conspiratorial Tropes as Modes of Critique in Ḥabībī’s The Pessoptimist and Saʿdāwī’s Frankenstein in Baghdad

Abstract This article uses the concepts of “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory,” along with their literary tropes, to theorize resistance to the colonial ideals of modernity in Israel and Iraq and to contest the oppressive developmental temporalities associated with this modernity. By analyzing Imīl Ḥabībī’s al-Mutashāʾil (The Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist, 1974) and Aḥmad Saʿdāwī’s Frānkishtāyn fī Baghdād (Frankenstein in Baghdad, 2013), I show how tropes of conspiracism and conspiratorial thinking are deployed in both of these novels to critique myths of linear progress—often used to justify the Israeli occupation and the U.S. invasion—despite the divergent historical periods and contexts out of which the two texts emerge. In their act of contestation, the novels leverage alternate temporalities in connection to conspiracism, such as the cyclical time of suffering and exploitation, or the apocalyptic time that offers release from said suffering through ending time altogether. Yet in both cases the tropes of conspiracy are ultimately shown to have little explanatory or emancipatory value and high human cost. Both novels thus thematize the analytic and critical limits of conspiracism.

On Translated Modern Iraqi Fiction in English: Target Readership Perspective

English translation of modern Iraqi fiction remains uncharted territory mainly from target readers’ perception. For this purpose, the paper aims to investigate the target ordinary readers’ perception of modern Iraqi novel translated into English using a collected corpus of reviews published in Goodreads online review platform. The study adopts a case study approach to examine target readers’ comments on Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013), translated by Jonathan Wright (2018). The novel has succeeded in reaping a number of international literary awards; it was also on the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize in 2018. This paper draws on non-professional (ordinary) readers’ reviews to explore how English literary readers have welcomed, although slowly, the presence of contemporary Iraqi fiction. In line with this view of readership, a corpus of 164 text reviews and 2030 ratings were collected from Goodreads platform and analyzed to understand the ordinary English-speaking readership perception of the translated novel as to the features of a favorably received translation of Iraqi fiction. Therefore, the study has two aims to address: first, to identify the key features which may impede/enhance the non-professional readers’ enjoyment of the translated novel under study; second, to introduce a brief account of modern Iraqi translated fiction. The study is significant in that it helps to encourage future research on readers’ reception of modern Iraqi fiction translated into other languages and also to fill in a gap in literary translation studies on target ordinary readers’ perspective.

Representing Magical Realism as a Strategy for the Grotesque Narration in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad

Representing Magical Realism as a Strategy for the Grotesque Narration in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad

The Role of Cognitive Schema Theory in the Translation from Arabic into English

This study investigates the role of schema theory in translation and aims to gain knowledge that may progress AI-related domains through the simulation of cognition and AI. Schema theory hypothesizes that translators use mental frameworks (schemata) to organize and interpret information. In the context of translation, schemata play a crucial role in knowledge representation, affecting limitations made during the translation process. A cognitive approach is employed and qualitative methods are used in the analysis. A corpus is collected from the translation of a SL Arabic novel (Frankenstein in Baghdad by A. Saadawi) into TL English, covering domains and language pairs. The translation process is analyzed to identify cognitive patterns employed by the translator as they apply schemata to achieve cross-cultural renditions. Conclusions reveal that schema activation significantly impacts translation choices, influencing how the translator interprets and conveys meaning across languages. Cognitive patterns shed light on how cultural and linguistic factors influence the transfer of information between SL and TL. Additionally, the study uncovers variations in schema utilization across different translation tasks and the adaptability and flexibility of cognitive processes in response to varying contexts and linguistic challenges. By deepening our understanding of schema theory, this research contributes to the design, training, and assessment of AI algorithms. It also provides valuable insights into the cognitive mechanisms underlying successful cross-linguistic communication and offers practical implications for translators engaged in intercultural exchange. Finally, this paper recommends that AI systems can drive advancements in MT and other AI-related fields of prior knowledge to produce accuracy and more closely with native speakers by using schema theory concepts.

Unraveling the Theme of Theodicy in Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad Through the Literary Devices of Allusion

This article explores the theme of theodicy in Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad through the literary devices of allusion. It claims that the author evokes theodicean emotions or associations, and engages readers' prior knowledge and cultural awareness to empower religious and cultural identity in his work throughout three kinds of allusions. Showing a unique view on the consequences of civil war and violence on both individuals and society, Saadawi's novel, winning the "Arabic Booker Prize," obviously intertwines together elements of horror, political allegory, and dark satire. The aim of this work is to examine the theodicy behind this diverse coexistence novelty implied behind these allusions that contributes to the understanding of the themes of the novel. The study revealed that Saadawi alludes to different aspects of references, which all contribute to the comprehension and presentation of religious and cultural identities that explore the evil of his national culture

Only Monsters Evolve From Wars: An Analogical Reading of Slaughterhouse-Five and Frankenstein in Baghdad

This article examines the absurdity of wars and grounds their intersecting contours of enormous death (physical and psychological), destruction, and trauma notwithstanding their location, grounds, pretext, or repercussions. It underlines the scathing critiques of their constituencies in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013, trans. 2018), two novels articulating a striking disdain for the ethics and myths of the so-called “just wars.” The researchers, sharing the novelists’ moral qualms about wars, bring these two novels together in a potent critique uncovering the cruelties of wars, which have led to the dislodgement and demise of millions of people all over the world, not to mention the psychological insecurities and anxieties instigated by war. To illustrate, the horrible car bomb explosions besetting Baghdad in the aftermath of the 2003-American invasion of Iraq are equated with the Allies’ firebombing and leveling of Dresden in Eastern Germany. Hence, Dresden and Baghdad lapse into waves of horror and massacres committed in the name of justice, and Vonnegut and Saadawi, whose awfully poignant firsthand war experiences enticed them to foreground the tragedies of war, interweave nonlinear antiwar narratives reminiscent of the mismatched body of Whatsitsname in Frankenstein in Baghdad and Billy Pilgrim’s disheveled appearance and lack of training as a soldier in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.

Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad in the Time of the COVID-19: A Postmodern Reading

The study explores how Ahmed Saadawi’s novel, Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) could be related to the time of COVID-19 through a postmodern lens focusing on post-war issues. The study aims at exploring Saadawi’s characters who are used by the writer to represent post-war issues in Iraq. The characters suffer from a kind of hallucination and depression as seen in both their behavior and their routine, everyday lives. They show how their life has no meaning and aim. All this is symbolized by the monster which itself is only the creation of the minds of these depressed people. The study shows how people, who are suffering from postwar issues can also resemble people suffering through the COVID-19 pandemic. The hallucinations of Saadawi’s characters resemble those of real-life people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the paper tries to explore how Saadawi’s characters resemble humanity in the time of COVID-19. In general, little research has been conducted on the postwar issues represented in Saadawi’s novel, Frankenstein in Baghdad, and how the characters themselves in the novel could represent humanity in post-pandemic times. The paper’s contribution is to fill the gaps of the previously made points.

EXPLORING THE DAILY HORRORS OF LIFE IN IRAQ THROUGH FRANKENSTEIN IN BAGHDAD

Iraqi writer Ahmed Saadawi's 2014 International Arabic Fiction Prize–winning book Frankenstein in Baghdad is the subject of this article. I contend that Saadawi identifies the origins of the terrorism.Since the United States took over the country. Rooted in terror is apprehension. Judith Butler describes the current state of affairs as "a precarious life," where the threat of violent death is ever present, and the breakdown of central authority has released the monster of fear.Furthermore, new Iraqi actors' power struggles breed egotism, demagogy, and exploitation. Recognizing that everyone is responsible is an essential theme throughout the book. A possible escape from the horrors of the civil war and slaughter would be possible if people would only accept responsibility for their actions and recognize that no one is ultimately a victim or a perpetrator.

Decentering Human/ Becoming Posthuman: Monstrous Subjectivity in Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013)

Since its appearance in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (1818), the monster figure was deemed the human’s other that poses a threat to humanity. In 2013, in his award-winning novel Frankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed Saadawi, the Iraqi acclaimed writer, appropriated Shelly’s monster in the hybrid posthuman figure of Whatsitsname that shares with Shelly’s Frankenstein the same anxieties but within the context of Iraq after the American invasion in 2003. With the advent of the twenty first century, and emergence of new social realities due to the capitalist system, the changes associated with technology, war on terrorism and globalization led to the rise of the posthuman condition in which human and other-than-human entities are envisioned in a new light. What characterizes the posthuman condition is the reassessment of the dualistic thinking that governed the human thought and the rise of hybrids as posthuman subjects. In this respect, many traditional boundaries between nature/culture, human/other, and humanity/monstrosity were transgressed. This paper aims at exploring manifestations of posthuman subjectivity in Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) by Ahmed Saadawi in the light of critical posthumanism. It claims that the monstrous figure in the novel is a posthuman subject that presents an alternative vision, not a threatening entity. It will focus on decentering human identity as highlighted in Michel Foucault’s criticism of biopolitics, and exploring posthuman subjectivity as pursued by Rosi Braidotti and Ellen L. Graham. Keywords: Posthumanism, Monster, Subjectivity, Decentering, Frankenstein

A CRITICAL PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF IDENTITY IN THE NOVEL FRANKENSTEIN IN BAGHDAD

This study aims to analyze the different aspects of the concept of identity as represented in the novel Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi. The analysis is conducted by using a Critical Pragmatic Identity Analysis (CPIA) as a methodological approach to investigate how identities are constructed, deconstructed, and negotiated within the complex social fabric of the novel. The paper adopts the qualitative research approach with a particular focus on textual analysis to accurately analyze the construction and negotiation of the concept of identity in the novel, with the purpose of revealing that identity construction in Frankenstein in Baghdad is a complex, dynamic process shaped by the interplay of individual agency, societal forces, and language. The findings of this study have revealed that Critical Pragmatics (CP) in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) fashion as an approach is an effective method in discovering both the explicit and implicit aspects of identity construction. Moreover, this approach provides detailed analysis tools of how language serves as both a tool for expressing identity and for navigating power dynamics.

The City of Baghdad in Iraqi Fiction: Novelistic Depictions of a Spatiality of Ruin

The Iraqi novel has contended with brutish forms of violence for the better part of the past century that have essentially reshaped the narrative experience unto space. Writers are confronted with the challenge of typifying a search for meaning in and amongst character-altering ruin. At the height of its maturity today, as various works convey spatial woundedness particularly in the city of Baghdad, there is a relationship between fiction and urban reality symbolizing an image of complexity. They play host to a fantastical blending of the real and unreal. They see through to the mediational potencies of absurdist violence, one that is acted out this performativity on the page a matter of survival. The selected works respectively depict the pre-revolutionary capital before moving into the bitter decades to follow. Many build worlds that are mired in the crippling present day engaging the normativity of the spatial wound to make sense of the nonsensical. The novels Hunters in a Narrow Street, The Corpse Washer, Frankenstein in Baghdad and Tashari and short story “The Corpse Exhibition” work towards that end. They critically ponder decrepitude and death as it joins life in the realm of the real, legitimate ruination of place as aesthetic in the liminal imaginary and create the conditions with which to imagine the spatial afterlife of destruction. The extracted articulations and thoughts around each are informed by the critical theoretical lenses of three landmark thinkers of space and place and how the latter equates to the emotionality of man. Keywords: Baghdad, Space and place, Literature, Fiction, Wounded identity, War, Ruination, Dystopia.

The Missing Corpse in Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad and Muhsin Al-Ramli’s Daughter of the Tigris

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on the trope of the missing corpse in two contemporary Iraqi novels: Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) and Muhsin al-Ramli’s Daughter of the Tigris (2019). Drawing mainly on critical work on the corpse and death studies as well as critical ideas on relics and hauntology the essay asks: What place does the missing corpse occupy in a body of contemporary literary outputs that have witnessed a significant engagement with the materiality of the dead body? How is the narrative of the absent corpse structured and framed? How is it experienced and accounted for? What forms and shapes replace the absent body? The essay argues that the missing corpse takes on an “absent presence” that haunts the narrative while the dead body’s very disappearance is compensated for through relics, surrogates, replacements, and repetitions. In conclusion, the essay contends that this absent presence further signals a haunted futurity that is entangled in Iraq’s history of violence but which, nonetheless, offers the potential for a radically new and democratic vision for the country’s future.

Neoliberal contradictions, necrocapitalist nightmares: questions of human agency and free will in Aḥmad Saʿdāwī’s Frankenstein in Baghdad

ABSTRACT This article argues that the major fantastic conceit, the Whatsitname (the shisma), in Ahmad Sa'dāwī's novel, Frankenstein in Baghdad, functions as an allegory for the repressed totality of necrocapitalist rationality in the postcolonial global South. Sa'dāwī's novel seemingly privileges postmodern and neoliberal ideologemes such as individual choice that blame the death and violence in Iraq on people's actions and representations. Nonetheless, the novel paradoxically attributes the human condition and the consequences of human actions to invisible structural forms of power and larger-than-life supernatural powers namely, the Whatsitsname as an allegory for necrocapitalism, that ultimately undermine human agency and freedom. I will examine the ways in which this tension is articulated in the novel through the production of the fantasy of a unified nation, homoerotic desire, and class politics. The novel ultimately reflects Iraqi subjects' deeper ontological anxieties about the circulation of their bodies in the necrocapitalist market.

Jonathan Wright on translating Arab and Iraqi literature, interview by Ruth Abou Rached

Jonathan Wright is a British journalist and literary translator, known for bringing many works of Arab fiction to new audiences via translation for the past fifteen years. His recent works, however, seem more connected to Iraq: in addition to The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim and Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, he has translated The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon (Yale University Press, 2020) and God 99 by Blasim (Comma Press, 2020). Jonathan is currently working on a semi-biographical novella by Iraqi writer Ali Bader and on works by Palestinian activist and fiction writer Ghassan Kanafani yet to be translated or retranslated, into English. In this interview, Ruth Abou Rached and Jonathan Wright discuss the experiences of Wright translating Iraqi and Arabic fiction and Wright offers his thoughts and recommendations.

Diglossia between Edge and Bridge in Arabic Science Fiction: Reinventing Narrative after the Arab Spring

ABSTRACT This article examines the transcription of diglossia in Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue (al-Tábúr 2013; translated into English by Elisabeth Jaquette in 2016) and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (Frānkishtāyn fī Baghdad 2013; translated into English by Jonathan Wright in 2018), and how it is rendered in translation. The article argues that Abdel Aziz and Saadawi encapsulate diglossia in their novels to crystallize the immediacy of sociopolitical upheavals through the momentum of the Arab Spring and the colonial background of Iraq. The juxtaposition of high variety (Standard Arabic) and low variety (colloquial Arabic) is engineered toward the democratization of everyday language Arabic Science Fiction (ASF) to engage with ongoing events, thereby capturing the immediacy of the present in one genre. In doing so, Abdel Aziz and Saadawi constitute an archetype project of diglossia in the realm of ASF, opening a new linguistic chapter to convey a local spectrum of literary narrative beyond the convention of literary language, which uses standard Arabic as a serious literary medium. Thus, both novelists bridge the gap between high and low varieties, providing a new political immediacy to their societies.

A Psychoanalytic Reading of Ahmed Saadawi's Novel Frankenstein in Baghdad

Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad provides a distinct exposure of the psychic ailments (disorders) that engulf almost all of the characters in the novel. Even though they are not themselves aware of the problem, the characters in the novel suffer from split psyches, traumas they cannot deal with and knots they cannot resolve. The novel shows, to quote T. S. Eliot, but “a heap of broken” (Ellmann 459) psyches. Such is a phenomenon that blights contemporary Iraqi personality in general and can, in a sense, be termed collective unconscious (Bressler 127) (Note 1). The novel is, thus, a representation of what can be dubbed psychic fractures that have befallen the Iraqi character, noticeably ensuing the American invasion of Iraq that took place in 2003, the aftermaths of which the Iraqi people is still undergoing. Importantly, despite being an essential facet of the novel and an indispensable venue to understanding the characters this aspect has escaped the attention of critics and researchers alike.

City as an Art Space in Modern Arabic Prose

To study the stated topic, we considered it appropriate to draw on the textual material of two works of modern Arabic-language literature in the genre of the novel, written by masters of the word, well-known not only to the reading audience of the Arab countries, but also foreign ones. These are “Frankenstein in Baghdad” (2013) by Iraqi writer ’Ahmad Sa‘adawi and “Incredible novel. Damascus Mosaic” (1997) by the Syrian-Lebanese writer Gada as-Samman. The text of “Frankenstein…” will be studied most fully, the other novel — in part. Exploring the question of how artistic space is depicted in modern Arabic-language prose, the authors of the article point out that the theme of space and time has not gone out of sight of scientists and thinkers for more than one hundred years. Representatives of various sciences, including philologists, show interest in it. The contribution to the development of this topic by M. M. Bakhtin, Yu. M. Lotman and others. Attention is drawn to a large arsenal of terms and concepts used by philologists in its study. The novel by ’Ahmad Sa‘adawi, who became the winner of the “Arab Booker” in 2014, the authors made the subject of particularly close attention. The artistic space in it is depicted most voluminously — in its toponymic, color, acoustic, odor characteristics, which allows the reader to create a visible image of the environment where the characters live and act, as well as get an idea of the situation not only in the described locus — Baghdad, but also in the country as a whole, and at a critical period in its history. The textual material of the novel G. as-Samman considered from the point of view of the locus-character correlation, deepens and clarifies the reader’s and philological understanding of the artistic space. It is concluded that modern Arabic writers pay considerable attention to the image of artistic space, use its various references, due to which this image appears capacious and realistic. This achieves the goal of the masters of the artistic word — to convey the truth about their country and its people, to draw attention to the tragedy of their current situation.

Paradigms of Power in Postcolonial Translation

This essay examines Mohammad Rabie’s Otared (Arabic 2014; English 2016) and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (Arabic 2013; English 2018) with an emphasis on the transformation of dystopia. I argue that Rabie and Saadawi have constructed their dystopian novels under the influence of Western literature while being directly affected by the dire political situations that they find themselves in. Rabie engages with the Arab Spring and the far-reaching impact of colonialism, whereas Saadawi deals with Iraq’s sombre realities against the backdrop of the American-led invasion in 2003. Their respective accounts are not merely a recycling of Western genres but are also profoundly impacted by the prevailing circumstances while being portrayed on the global stage via translation. In this way, they manifest a powerful insight into the translation of Arabic dystopian fiction, which is shaped by colonial and postcolonial power relations. In the proliferation of Arabic dystopian fiction, translation acts as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, translation specifies how colonialist forces impose Western influence upon the Arabic culture. On the other hand, it becomes a powerful tool to expose Western readers to the Arab people’s harrowing postcolonial and post-revolutionary experiences.

The Trickster’s Evolution in “Frankenstein in Baghdad” by Ahmed Saadawi

The subject of the study is the image of Hadi the Junkman, coined the modern Iraqi writer Ahmed Saadawi in the novel “Frankenstein in Baghdad” (2013). The author is interested how the residents of the Iraqi capital survive under American invention. The author presents the picture of the 2000-s years using the fate of the Baghdadis as an illustration. He describes numerous explosions in Baghdad and the consequences they had on its citizens future. The novelist compares the living conditions of ordinary people of the Batavia quarter and high-ranking government officials. The figure of a junk dealer Hadi al-Atak, who walks around the city in search of antiques and tells entertaining stories unites the people with different background. Being a trickster, a liar, or buffoon, old man has created an imaginary monster that fights against injustice and avenges the innocent people who died in terrorist attacks. The methods of historical and system analysis allow us to prove that in the era of formation change, the role of the trickster is becoming more important and modified. Shuttling between good and evil, the Junkman helps to smooth out conflicts and resolve disputes peacefully. Due to the breakdown of life paradigms, the trickster has a special function: he becomes the leading hero and saves humanity from evil, performing a Christological role. Taking the blame for the crimes of his brainchild “Whatsitsname” (Arab Frankenstein), sacrificing his life, the Hadi the Junkman brings peace and stability to the tired people of Baghdad.

The Maps of identity in Frankenstein in Baghdad: National Spectrum of Iraq in Post-2003

This article focuses on the English translation of Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2018), emphasizing the direct connection between home and identity in Iraq against the backdrop of colonial Baghdad. Saadawi’s text manifests a sophisticated and intricate allegory of Iraqi society in terms of identity and socio-political upheaval in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Through the metaphor of “the Whatsitsname,” which comprises different ethnicities of Iraqi people, Saadawi engages with the quintessence of Iraqi identity elucidated as fragmented parts of a human body with one soul. I argue that by relying on the metaphoric references, Saadawi establishes the Whatsitsname as a national figure while addressing Iraqi identity on multiple levels: linguistically, historically, culturally, and archaeologically. To that end, I seek to underscore the direct relationship between ‘home’ and identity in Saadawi’s novel with an emphasis on the linguistic designation of the Whatsitsname, the historical significance and cultural diversity of Baghdad, as well as the archaeological heritage of Iraq. In this way, Saadawi embodies the collective identity of the entire Iraqi community in a cogent spectrum and aims to reconstruct the Iraqi identity in post-2003, something that the Iraqi government has failed to establish or recognize.