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‘I Am Too Crushed by the War That Started in Sudan to Embark on a New Novel’ Leila Aboulela’s First Draft

First DraftInterviewsJune/July 2023Sudanvol7-no3

Award-winning writer and Sudanese novelist, Leila Aboulela, discovered Akuany, the protagonist of her most recent novel, River Spirit, on a bill of sale in the Sudan Archives at Durham University: ‘I knew that slavery existed in nineteenth century Sudan, but it was still a shock to hold in my hand proof of it, with a monetary figure and the names of buyer and seller.’

Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, Pan-African Dreams. Buy the issue here.

First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.

Our questions are italicized.

What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?

I attended an American elementary school in Khartoum, so I grew up reading American books from its library. These books include Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. The first adult books I read were Daphne du Maurier’s novels titled Jamaica Inn and Rebecca. In my teens I started to read more seriously and widely. The books I read during this time were the Russian classics, and works of Naguib Mahfouz, Tayeb Salih, and Nawal El Saadawi...

This interview features in our print issue, ‘Pan-African Dreams’ and is only available online to paying subscribers. To subscribe, buy a subscription plan here from N1,000 / month (students) and N3,500 / month (non-students). Already a subscriber? log in.

Leila Aboulela

is a Sudanese writer and the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her sixth novel, River Spirit, was published in March 2023 and described by The New York Times as ‘Dazzling… a novel of war, love, faith, womanhood and–crucially–the tussle over truth and public narratives’. Nobel Laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, described it as ‘A novel of extraordinary sympathy and insight–a wonderful achievement.’ Leila’s previous novels are Bird Summons, The Kindness of Enemies, The Translator, Minaret, and Lyrics Alley, Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Her short story collection Elsewhere, Home, won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Leila’s work has been translated into fifteen languages and she was nominated three times for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction). She is Honorary Professor of the WORD center at the University of Aberdeen.

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