Book of Khartoum

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• Publisher: Comma Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781910974643
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Index: Literature

Khartoum, according to one theory, takes its name from the Beja word hartooma, meaning 'meeting place'. Geographically, culturally and historically, the Sudanese capital is certainly that: a meeting place of the Blue and White Niles, a confluence of Arabic and African histories, and a destination point for countless refugees displaced by Sudan's long, troubled history of forced migration. In the pages of this book - the first major anthology of Sudanese stories to be translated into English - the city also stands as a meeting place for ideas: where the promise and glamour of the big city meets its tough social realities; where traces of a colonial past are still visible in day-to-day life; where the dreams of a young boy, playing in his father's shop, act out a future that may one day be his. Diverse literary styles also come together here: the political satire of Ahmed al-Malik; the surrealist poetics of Bushra al-Fadil; the social realism of the first postcolonial authors; and the lyrical abstraction of the new 'Iksir' generation. As with any great city, it is from these complex tensions that the best stories begin.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• The Tank
• In the City
• A Boy Playing with Dolls
• It’s Not Important, You’re From There
• Next Eid
• Passing
• The Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away
• The Passage
• The Butcher’s Daughter
• The Void
• About the Authors
• About the Translators
• Special Thanks