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I have never read anything like this, and I severely doubt that I will read a better book this year. Like one of the many (and I mean: many) detonations we are witnessing in this text, the story, the timeline and the point of view simply explode right in our faces, again and again, and just like the characters, we are forced to piece everything together - will we succeed in doing this? And what kind of monster are we creating by devoting ourselves to this Sisyphean task?

In case you're wondering whether this book really offers cutting-edge political commentary, just take in the exposition of the story: When Hadi, a middle-aged junk dealer, loses his best friend Nahem in an explosion caused by a suicide bomber, he wants to make sure Nahem gets a proper burial - but for this, he needs a complete corpse, so Hadi decides to substitute the missing parts with the body parts of other victims of violence that he finds in the streets of Baghdad. You guessed it: The completed corpse, called Whatsitsname by Hadi, is entered by a displaced soul and comes to life. And not only that, the Whatsitsname wants revenge for the deaths of the people whose body parts he is composed of, and goes on a killing spree through Baghdad.

But wait a minute, maybe this didn't even happen. Maybe Hadi is just an alcoholic liar and made it all up. Or maybe the Whatsitsname is an urban legend and a personification of people's fears. Or of people's longing for justice. Maybe the Whatsitsname works for the Iraqi government. Or the Americans. Or the terrorists. Or one of the militias. Maybe the whole story was distorted by the media. Who the hell knows?

Which brings us to the heart of this book: In war-torn Baghdad, a whole society is exploding. Absolutely nothing is certain anymore, it becomes impossible to trust anyone or to verify information. It becomes dubious who stands on what side, who is spying on whom, and when and how the innocent become criminals. Human solidarity collapses over a variety of conflicts, and people get trapped in a circle of violence and revenge.

How do you piece a human life or a whole society back together? Saadawi starts by telling this story. The topic of fragmentation is also represented in the narrative style, which jumps in time and between perspectives, and while the narrator is omniscient, he certainly does not share all of his knowledge with the reader. The connection between personal experiences and the destiny of society as a whole as well as the connection between the people inside and outside of the novel gets apparent when the author of "Frankenstein in Baghdad", Ahmed Saadawi, becomes a character in the book, where he meets a journalist named Mahmoud al-Sawadi (the names Mahmoud and Ahmed both go back to Muhammad and mean "praise"). Mahmoud is carrying a big secret about his family's origin - one of the many breathtaking ideas this book throws at its readers.

This novel gives you what the best news report can't offer. It's the magic of literature, and this is a true masterpiece. Sample quote:

"Because I'm made up of body parts of people from diverse backgrounds - ethnicities, tribes, races and social classes - I represent the impossible mix that never was achieved in the past. I'm the first true Iraqi citizen, he (the Whatsitsname) thinks."