Past Events

The May book club will discuss

The Drowning 

by Hammour Ziada

translated by Paul G Starkey

published Fall 2022

by Interlink Publishing

https://www.interlinkbooks.com/product/the-drowning/  

An intelligent and compelling novel

that lifts a corner of the veil that covers

the misery of so many women’s lives

Sudan, 1968, the military coup taking place in Khartoum echoes all the way to the small rural town of Hajer Narti, where the body of a young girl has just been found in the Nile. Like every time a body is washed up on the shore, Fatima shows up, According to popular belief, when the Nile brings a new body back, it also brings back an old one. Fatima is still looking for her daughter Su'ad, believed to have drowned many years ago.

The Drowning is Hammour Ziada’s third novel. With scarce descriptions, and just the minimal amount of words, Ziada succeeds in portraying very convincing characters, and in poignantly capturing the violence of social relations in a strictly codified society. Only 13 year-old Abeer eludes the reader. Like a dream all men try to catch throughout the novel, Abeer floats silently across town, a fluttering butterfly.

The original Arabic edition, entitled Al-Gharaq: Hikayat al-Qahr wal-Wanas (Drowning: Tales of Oppression and Togetherness) was reviewed by Abla Oudeh in Banipal 69 - 9 New Novels (Autumn/Winter 2020).

• The Drowning
• Publisher: Interlink Books (September 6, 2022)
• Length: 170 pages
• ISBN13: 9781623719067

Hammour Ziada is an award-winning Sudanese writer and journalist. His previous novel The Longing of the Derwish won the 2014 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and was shortlisted for the International Prize of Arabic Fiction. Sudanese film director Amjad Abu Alala was inspired by Hammour Ziada's short story Sleeping at the Foot of the Mountain (the title story of his short story collection) to adapt it to film. The film –You Will Die at 20 – was screened in September 2019 at the 76th Venice International Film Festival and received the Lion of the Future (Luigi de Laurentiis) Award for Best Debut Feature. Hammour Ziada was the 2020 Banipal Visiting Writer Fellowship, based at St Aidan's College, Durham University. 

Paul Starkey is an award-winning translater of ontemporary Arabic literature. He was a contributing editor of Banipal magazine almot since its foundation. His translations includeSarajevo Firewood by Algerian author Saïd Khatiibi, which was shortlisted for the 2020 IPAF Award (Banipal Books, September 2021), The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa, for which he was awarded the 2017 Hamad Translation Award, and The Book of the Sultan’s Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars by Youssef Rakha won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

From the Wall Street Journal:

“In his latest novel, The Drowning, translated into English by Paul G. Starkey, the Sudanese writer Hammour Ziada expertly weaves together several complex stories. He breaks up their chronological order without losing the logic of narration, describes chaos while advancing the story line without dropping a single thread. Taking the course of the Nile River as his setting, Mr. Ziada creates unforgettable and brilliantly wrought characters: Bashir, who mourns the loss of his wife; Fayit, who doesn’t want to face ostracism again; her daughter, Abeer, who ends up on a similar path of suffering; and Fatima, who dutifully waits on the banks of the river for the return of her daughter. ‘Every time a body is washed up on the shore, Fatima shows up. According to popular belief, when the Nile brings a new body back, it also brings back an old one.’ Her wait is striking in its delicacy and overwhelming in its importance. The Drowning portrays the bittersweet contradictions of today’s Sudan.”

– Wall Street Journal, Five Best Novels from the Horn of Africa

The Drowning is available as a paperback from the usual outlets internationally

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ALL WELCOME

Please email bookclub@banipal.co.uk to request the Zoom Login.

The Zoom Login will be sent out on Monday 29 May to everyone who has emailed to attend.