Frankenstein in Baghdad

 

　　「一千零一夜」欲罷不能的說書口吻、顛覆小說類型的空前風格！

　　阿拉伯世界最大網路書店「尼羅幼發拉底河」年度冠軍小說

 

　　一個誕生於恐怖攻擊的「X怪客」、一名熱血記者掀起狂瀾的報導……駭人事件接連引爆，結合懸疑、奇幻與黑色幽默，以小說映照此刻巴格達最真實的混亂不安，寫出了一個唯有擁抱瘋狂才能生存的世界。

 

　　巴格達遭美軍占領期間，撿破爛的哈迪經常在咖啡廳為眾人「說故事」。他因為摯友死於爆炸案的打擊，開始蒐集無名屍體「重新組裝」、縫補成一個人的模樣，並稱之為「無名氏」，盼望政府為這些無辜者伸張正義，舉行像樣的葬禮。某天，死於另一場爆炸的年輕靈魂與無名氏的軀體相遇，竟讓他活了過來，走上街頭消失無蹤。

 

　　無名氏失蹤後，巴格達街頭接連出現謀殺案件。毫不知情的哈迪半開玩笑地展開他的「一千零一夜」故事連載，口述重組屍身的離奇軼事，但眾人只當他在幻想，萬萬想不到「無名氏」正是目前在新聞上鬧得沸沸揚揚、殺人無數的「X怪客」。

 

　　一名年輕記者輾轉找到X，取得他的自白錄音，但這座城市離奇死亡的事件卻無法平息。X打算為身上「不同部位」的受害者復仇，卻在不知不覺間，戴上了加害者的面容……　（中文簡介來自出版社：寂寞出版社《巴格達X怪客》內文）

 

*International Booker Prize finalist*

＂Brave and ingenious.＂ --The New York Times

＂Gripping, darkly humorous . . . profound.＂ --Phil Klay, bestselling author and National Book Award winner for Redeployment

＂Extraordinary . . . A devastating but essential read.＂ --Kevin Powers, bestselling author and National Book Award finalist for The Yellow Birds

From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi--a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café--collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive--first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path. A prizewinning novel by ＂Baghdad’s new literary star＂ (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.

Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi novelist, poet, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He is the first Iraqi to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; he won in 2014 for Frankenstein in Baghdad, which also won France’s Grand Prize for Fantasy. In 2010 he was selected for Beirut39, as one of the 39 best Arab authors under the age of 39. He was born in 1973 in Baghdad, where he still lives.