Mahmoud Saeed (1935–2025)

Saddam City is a slim but powerful work. Set in 1979, it follows the bewildering journey of Mustafa Ali Noman through Iraq's Saddam-era jail system. Noman (the name is intentionally informative) is arrested but not told why before being transported from city to city and jail to jail. In each jail he meets a variety of prisoners, guards and torturers, and through their stories, attempts to draw a picture of the brutality of life in Iraq under Saddam.
I liked Saddam City a lot. The author spent show more time in jails on six occassions, and has clearly drawn on his experiance. He captures the absurdity of the prisoner's stories very well, documenting 'crimes' such as having a relative abroad or commenting on the leader in public. The narration is straightforward, without embellishment, lending it a similar tone to One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, which made it both mundane and powerful. Despite the subject matter (torture, execution, etc.) it is the sheer absurdity of the men's situation that shines through, giving the book an almost surreal edge, in spite of the down to earth telling of the story. All in all, this was disturbing yet readable look at the security apparatus of Saddam's Iraq seen from the inside. show less

I thought this book was very well written and the story was interesting though a bit wordy. To me, the book felt like an extended short story. Overall, I really enjoyed the book, and that the author signed it was so nice and unexpected.

I won Ben Barka Lane through LibraryThing's member giveaways. Many thanks to the publisher for sending it to me.

I was very excited to read this. There's definitely an intriguing back story to it, but it wasn't quite as outrageous as I expected, being a banned book. But I suppose that's just down to cultural differences. Anyway, this was an engrossing read. Sharqi was an interesting and highly accessible protagonist. Saeed is a wonderful author. I'd love to read more of his works in the future.

I won this book from the author on LibraryThing...and it was a signed copy too! Thank you!
This book is about an Iraqi on vacation in Morocco and all the people he meets and places he goes and the woman he falls in love with. Overall I enjoyed the book. It held my interest, was a fast-paced story and really picked up at the end with some added intrigue. Some of the reading was difficult to decipher due to the fact that this book was translated into English.