The Baghdad Clock

By: Shahad Al Rawi, Luke Leafgren - translator

Narrated by: Christine Tawfik

Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2018

For fans of The Kite Runner comes this remarkable debut, the number one best-selling title in Iraq, Dubai, and the UAE.

Baghdad, 1991. In the midst of the first Gulf War, a young Iraqi girl huddles with her neighbors 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 fall, the international sanctions bite and friends begin to flee the country, the girls must face the fact that their lives will never be the same again.

This poignant debut novel will spirit listeners away to a world they know only from the television, revealing just what it is like to grow up in a city that is slowly disappearing in front of your eyes, and showing how in the toughest times, children can build up the greatest resilience.

©2016 Shahad Al Rawi (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

The dog died at the end

Sorry to spoil this part of the story, but I wish I knew that before reading this amazing book. I don’t regret reading it at all, but I needed to be prepared mentally for this part.