3 Review(s)

Saad Z. Hossain's debut novel is a wildly humorous take on the horror and absurdity of war. Dagr, a former university professor, and Kinza, a small-time thug, are thrown together in the chaos of the Iraq war. As the US Marines bumble around destroying their country, the two friends do everything in their power to stay alive, an increasingly impossible task as Baghdad collapses around them. And then their luck begins to turn. They capture Captain Hamid, the star torturer of Saddam Hussein, who promises them a fortune in gold if they smuggle him out of Baghdad. Helped by a corrupt US Marine, Private Hoffman, they begin their escape, when unexpectedly things get even more crazily complicated. A unique blend of humour, satire, fantasy, mystery and mythology that rattles along at the pace of a belt-fed burst of machinegun fire from an Apache gunship, Escape from Baghdad! is an exhilarating debut. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK .A marvellous mix of genres, blending the visceral atmosphere of a war movie with the casual nihilism of Catch-22 or the original M.A.S.H.- Kirkus Reviews H,ossain daringly shows us that war isn't just hell but absolutely insane. - Library Journal nods to Catch-22, Frankenstein, The Island of Doctor Moreau and the Golem myth, Escape from Baghdad! weaves fantasy, absurdity and adventure into a moving counter-narrative to the myth of the just war