Reading the World (4): Sudan

For Sudan, Toby has read a book that is not actually by a Sudanese author - however, he enjoyed it very much, and so, we wanted to include it. The book we have chosen for Egypt, by an Egyptian author, will feature Sudan again...a bit :)

oby: A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park

A Long Walk to Water is a book about the Lost Boys of Sudan. These were 20,000 boys displaced by the Second Civil War in Sudan, which lasted from 1983-2005. Salva’s story starts in 1985. He is a young boy from the village of Loun-Ariic. One day, the rebels blow up his school and he gets separated from his parents. He then meets his uncle, and goes on a trip to a camp in Ethiopia. He meets lots of friends, but the rebels find them and make them swim the river going from Ethiopia to Kenya. Many get swallowed whole by alligators, and many get shot by the rebels. We follow Salva over several years as he tries to find his way to Kenya, and to safety.
 
The book changes narrators, as well as Salva, there is Nya. Her story takes place in 2008, after the civil war ended, and we first meet her when she fetches water, which takes her half a day. Salva’s story spans several years, Nya’s story lasts only a day.
 
I liked this book because it based on a true story. Salva is a real person, and the author’s descriptions are very good. The book wasn’t always easy to read, because you know that real people got hurt, but I think it is important to know happened in Sudan, and this is a good way for children to learn a bit about it.

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Sabine: Telepathy, by Amir Tag Elsir

I enjoy books that mix reality with the surreal, and Elsir's short novel certainly delivers on this. An unnamed, celebrated Sudanese author begins to suspect that one of the characters in his latest novel - a poor man called Nishan Hamza Nishan, first a messenger in a school, before he takes it upon himself to gain an education with the aim of becoming a lawyer - is in fact based on a real person, of the same name. A friend of the writer suspects that Elsir may have been told Nishan's story telepathically, but Nishan is only part way through his own story, and in "Hunger's Hopes", the novel, an unpleasant fate awaits him. This leaves the author with a dilemma. Is he responsible for his characters, even in real life? Should he take it upon himself to try and change Nishan's fate - if it is his fate at all?

The book is set in Khartoum, and I enjoyed the descriptions of the Sudanese capital, as well as references to political occurrences, and seeing some of the views on Sudan and South Sudan through the eyes of somebody local. Elsir's descriptions are vivid, and the premise of the book was exciting. However, I found it difficult to warm to any of the characters - the women in Elsir's novel are difficult to engage with, since they seem very "polar" in character. The men are more interesting, but somehow always written at arm's length, as though there is a final piece missing. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read this book.

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