The Wolf of Baghdad
Memoir of a Lost Homeland
Transported by music to her ancestral home in the old Jewish quarter of Baghdad, the author encounters its ghost-like inhabitants who are revealed as long-gone family members. As she explores the city, journeying through their memories and her imagination, she at first sees cultural and social cohesion. Then the mood turns darker with the fading of this ancient community's fortunes. The wolf, believed by Baghdadi Jews to protect from harmful demons, sees that Jewish life in Iraq is over, and returns the author safely back to London.
This beautiful wordless narrative is illuminated by the words and portraits of the author's family, a brief history of Badhdadi Jews and of the making of this work. Says Isaacs: 'The Finns have a word, kaukokaipuu, which means a feeling of homesickness for a place you've never been to. I've been living in two places all my life; the England I was born in, and the lost world of my Iraqi-Jewish family's roots.'
'This isn't a book that you read. It's one where you actually fall inside the story. It's wonderful. I loved it!' — Sandi Toksvig
'An amazing achievement, both haunting and devastatingly haunted.' — Martin Rowson
'Moving, powerful and beautifully drawn.' — Steven Appleby
'A brilliant and truly trans-porting piece of work.' — JW3
•A tour de force — the most exciting animated audio-visual experience since Persepolis.' — Harif
Carol Isaacs is a musician and, as The Surreal McCoy, a well-known cartoonist published in the New Yorker, Spectator and Sunday Times. The Wolf of Baghdad is also an animated slideshow with its own musical soundtrack, which is often performed by a live band including Isaacs on accordion and keyboards, playing music of Iraqi and Judeo-Arabic origin. Carol has worked with many artists including Sinead O’Connor and the Indigo Girls. She is co-founder of the London Klezmer Quartet.
Her graphic novel, The Wolf of Baghdad, will be published by Myriad in January 2020.
