Graphic Memoir of a Lost Baghdad: A Conversation with Carol Isaacs
Reviving a millennium of Jewish life in Iraq through a modern graphic memoir
I recently met cartoonist and musician Carol Isaacs at a café in London to discuss her 2020 graphic memoir The Wolf of Baghdad: Memoir of a Lost Homeland. In the 1940s, a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish; within a decade, nearly all 150,000 had been expelled, killed, or forced to flee—a near-erasure of a community that had lived in Iraq for almost a thousand years. The Wolf of Baghdad is Isaacs’s attempt to reclaim that lost world, created by someone who feels homesick for a place she has never visited.
Other than Sammy Harkham’s Blood of a Virgin (see my review), I’m not aware of any other graphic novels that explore the history and displacement of Iraqi Jews. Isaacs reflected on the unexpected path that led her from single-panel cartoons to a work of diasporic memory and historical reclamation.
The Origins
For years Isaacs was known for her single-panel gag cartoons in Private Eye, The New Yorker, Reader’s Digest, and The Sunday Times. Then an American feminist anthology issued a call for three-page “origin stories.”
“I thought, why not try that?” she recalls. “Many people didn’t know anything about Iraqi Jews. They assumed we came from Europe.”
Those three pages—Deep Home—published in Strumpet Comics, reawakened her desire to explore her family’s history: her parents’ refugee journeys, her London childhood, and an inherited nostalgia for a Baghdad she never knew.
Researching a Vanished World
Because her family fled with almost nothing—hardly any photos, objects, or visual records—research was essential. “Most people left with one suitcase, and sometimes even that was confiscated. I had no images to work from.”
She began by interviewing relatives, gathering both the joyful memories and the darker ones: why they left, how bad it became, and what was lost. With support from Arts Council England and Dangoor Education, she began reconstructing old Baghdad. Her blog unexpectedly attracted readers across the Middle East—including in Iraq.
“I don’t know how they found me,” she says. “Suddenly I had readers in Baghdad.”
She connected with several Muslim university students who photographed the old Jewish Quarter for her. “They couldn’t go inside the houses, but they captured the exteriors. They were fascinated—they’d never heard our story.”
Her research also revealed how deeply Iraqi Jews shaped the region’s culture: many iconic Iraqi and Arabic songs of the 1920s and ’30s were written by Jewish composers whose names were later erased. “The music is everywhere, still beloved, but nobody knows the composers were Jewish.”
Piece by piece, she rebuilt a world that no longer exists—an act of remembrance that became the backbone of The Wolf of Baghdad.
Early Encounters with Comics
Despite her cartooning career, Isaacs was relatively new to graphic novels. Creating a largely wordless memoir meant building the narrative by instinct. Aside from occasional family testimonies, she let the visuals lead.
She has long admired Edward Gorey and British cartoonist Owen D. Pomery; their influence, paired with her single-panel sensibility, shaped the book’s quiet, contemplative tone. Isaacs appears as a ghostly silhouette wandering through old Baghdad, encountering echoes and ancestral voices.
“I felt that me wandering wordlessly could be powerful,” she says.
From Idea to Publication
Momentum built when she submitted the first 30 pages to the First Graphic Novel Competition. She was longlisted—but that was enough.
“Myriad Editions contacted me afterwards and offered a publishing deal,” she says. “Being longlisted can still be good news.”
With guidance from editor Corinne Pearlman, Isaacs expanded the backmatter—family stories, a timeline of Iraqi Jewry, and notes on her process. Journalist Lyn Julius, author of Uprooted, advised on historical framing.
A Wider Life Beyond the Page
Drawing the book digitally allowed Isaacs to create a 45-minute “motion comic,” combining animated panels with a soundtrack of Iraqi Jewish music.
“I’d only just begun exploring my musical heritage,” she says. “Using that repertoire added another emotional layer.”
The film premiered at JW3. Isaacs invited the Israeli and Iraqi embassies on separate evenings. To her astonishment, the Iraqi delegation sat in the front row, wept, and even sang along.
“One of them said, ‘This needs to be shown in Iraq. We must know this history.’”
A brief window opened for Isaacs to visit Baghdad—but Covid and later security concerns halted plans. “I still hope to go one day,” she says.
Published in 2020, The Wolf of Baghdad is now in its third reprint and has resonated far beyond Jewish or Middle Eastern audiences.
“I’ve met people who connect because their parents came from somewhere else,” she says. “They grew up between two worlds.”
The book also found readers in India, where Isaacs was invited to a literary festival. “I always tell workshop participants: talk to your elders. Record their stories. I wish I’d spoken more to my grandmother.”
A Growing Body of Work—and a New Chapter
Isaacs has more books underway, including Burma by Accordion, a memoir-travelogue retracing her father’s family’s escape from Japanese-occupied Burma in 1942. The story centres on her father’s cousin—an accordion player like Isaacs—who survived the escape by playing for food and shelter.
Before lockdown, Isaacs followed the same route from Mandalay to the Indian border, accordion in hand, with her partner documenting the trip. “I played for Burmese villagers—some quite bemused—but the interactions were wonderful.”
She has also moved into documentary animation, creating shorts such as Growing Up Mizrahi and Torn, the latter responding to 7 October and the tearing down of hostage posters in London. She is considering expanding the theme into a future book.
Closure, Identity, and Ongoing Questions
Has this journey brought her closer to understanding her identity?
“People ask if I’ve had closure. Not really. I’ve got more questions—especially in the last two years. Where do I belong?”
Yet her work suggests its own answer: drawing, researching, and resurrecting erased histories has become its own form of belonging.
As we finish our chat, Isaacs reflects on the unexpected path that took her from single-panel gags to one of the most significant graphic memoirs about Mizrahi history.
“I’m just glad I discovered this way of storytelling,” she says. “It feels natural now. A part of life.”
Article by Jonathan Sandler, Author of THE ENGLISH GI: WORLD WAR II GRAPHIC MEMOIR OF A YORKSHIRE SCHOOLBOY’S ADVENTURES IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE published in April 2022.
This is such a beautiful book.
This looks so good! Putting it on my reading list.