Ahmed Saadawi

Ahmed Saadawi grew up in Baghdad, Iraq, during a time when books were scarce. Due to the Iraqi state’s censorship of many books, along with international sanctions on the country from 1990 to 2003, Saadawi had access to very few books while growing up. Despite these difficult circumstances, he developed an intense passion for literature. Throughout his life, he has found various ways to express this passion for storytelling: in addition to working as a screenwriter and documentary film maker, he is the author of a volume of poetry and three novels. While working as a journalist in Iraq, including during the period of the Iraqi Civil War (2006-2008), he became committed to relating the horrors of this period to the public. This led him to write Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013). He felt that a novel was better capable of communicating characters’ life circumstances and emotions than journalistic reporting. In this novel, Saadawi sought to criticize the disastrous consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 by focusing on its impact on the local population. The novel was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize and won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014. The book has since been translated into a variety of languages and has received international acclaim. Ahmed Saadawi currently lives in Baghdad.