Daughter of the Tigris

I was impressed by Muhsin Al-Ramli's novel, The President's Gardens, when I read it in 2017 so eagerly requested a review copy of its sequel, Daughter Of The Tigris. Unfortunately I could not see that Daughter Of The Tigris repeated the gripping storytelling of the first novel so I have ended up being quite disappointed with it. Al-Ramli centres his tale around the political and financial carving up of Iraq's assets and infrastructure in the years following the war and focuses on Tariq and Qisma, a couple who married for convenience and who, during the course of the novel, forge ahead with attempts to secure their own slice of success and power.

Daughter Of The Tigris does start out well, but I felt that the characterisations swiftly ran out of steam. Even Tariq and Qisma felt two-dimensional and I soon got weary with many of their conversations being summarised to readers. Their establishment of an anodyne political party gets repetitive and I am sorry to say that I was often bored by this story. I feel my lack of connection with the narrative was due to excessive telling, rather than showing, because this is a writing style which doesn't really work for me. It's a shame because I could understand important points that Al-Ramli wanted to make about Iraq's social and political situation. I would still highly recommend readers to The President's Gardens, but sadly I am only lukewarmly enthusiastic about Daughter Of The Tigris.