The Gardener of Baghdad by Ahmad Ardalan: book review

The Gardener of Baghdad (2015) is set in modern-day Baghdad, Iraq, during the time of roadside bombs and shootings.

Adnan has a bookstore, which his father started in 1944. Adnan is elderly, and all he wants is a ‘nice, safe place’ to live, with his family.

As he’s cleaning the shop after a bomb blast, he finds a book, written in English, with a locket – inside is a photograph of a woman. It is the journal of Ali, a gardener, born in 1934 in Iraq, writing about the sacrifices he made in the name of love.’ It ends in July 1958.

Ali’s father died in a bus accident when he was 10 years old, and he helps support his mother, who died 10 months later. So, orphaned by 11 years of age, he turns to farming and gardening for comfort and income. His diary tells of the first time he met Mary – she was the ‘red line’ that he should not cross. With his attraction to a woman out of his league, he tempts fate, and the diary describes the challenges of their love, and the story of the gold locket.

Adnan, intriqued by the Gardener of Baghdad’s diary, attempts to find out more – is he still alive, what has happened to him since the revolution of 1958, and does the next generation of his family live in Iraq?

It’s a quick read, with a simple, yet effective story line. Not brilliantly written, lacking style and finesse, but overall a light romantic novel with a sense of nostalgia for a time and place that was once a more peaceful Baghdad.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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