Stranger in Baghdad

Diane, a young English nurse, marries Ibrahim, an Iraqi doctor, and returns with him to Baghdad in 1937 to live in his family house on the banks of the Tigris. The couple raise two sons—Ramzi, an air force pilot, and Ziad, a poet—and daughter, Mona, torn between her English and Iraqi heritage. Although the novel initially centers on Diane and Mona’s rocky mother-daughter relationship, it gradually becomes a tale of political intrigue and divided loyalties as characters grapple with decades of turmoil in Iraq. Drawing on her time in 1970s Iraq for her first novel, Elizabeth Loudon successfully evokes the changing face of Baghdad as Ibrahim, physician to the ruling elite, and Diane, nursemaid to the last king of Iraq, ultimately face jeopardy when their old allegiances collapse. This story of heartbreak and perseverance illustrates the difficult choices people face when they are swept up in the capricious flow of history.