Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin

Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin (Arabic: عبد العزيز بركة ساكن‎, born in Kassala, Sudan in 1963) is a Sudanese writer of fiction, whose literary work has been banned in Sudan since 2012.[1] Since then, he has lived in exile in Austria.

Life and work

Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin was born in the Sudanese town of Kassala, but the roots of his family go back to Darfur in western Sudan. He graduated in business administration from the University of Assiut in Egypt, and has exercised many professional activities during his life: as manual worker, secondary school teacher, consultant for UNICEF in Darfur, or as employee of an NGO in Sudan.

His literary work, which includes references to the Darfur genocide and the dictatorship in Sudan, is published in Arabic in Egypt and Syria. It is very popular with Sudanese readers, who have been smuggling his books into their country, since their interdiction by the Sudanese authorities.[2]

In 2009, he received the prestigious Tayeb Salih Prize at the Khartoum Book Fair for his novel The Jungo - Stakes of the Earth, and that deals with the conditions in a women's prison. Shortly after its release, the Sudanese authorities confiscated and banned his books.[3] In 2012, Baraka Sakin left Sudan, seeking exile in Austria, where he has lived since 2012.

In 2016, his novel The Messiah of Darfur was published in a French translation, followed by Les Jango in 2020.[4] In France, he also published children's books as a multilingual edition in Arabic, English and French.[5]

Several of his short stories have been published also in German translations.[6] In September 2016, he was invited to the German capital Berlin as participant of its International Festival of Literature[6] and in 2019 to the Festival of African Literature Crossing Borders in Cologne, Germany.[7]

Baraka Sakin has written for several Arabic-language magazines: Al Arabi Magazine (Kuweit), Al Naqid (London), Nazwa magazine (Oman), Journal of Palestinian Studies (Paris, in French), Doha Magazine (UAE), Banipal (London),[8] or Dastoor Newspaper (London).

Selected bibliography

(all titles given in English translation)

Novels
  • The Mills, Vision Publishing, Cairo, 2000
  • The Water Ashes, Vision Publishing, Cairo, 2001
  • The Husband of the Bullet Woman and My Beautiful Daughter, Vision Publishing, Cairo, 2003
  • The Bedouin Lover, Vision Publishing, Cairo, 2010
  • The Jungo - Stakes of the Earth, Awraq Publishing House, Cairo, 2009 English translation: The Jungo: Stakes of the Earth. (2015). Africa World Press/The Red Sea Press, Inc., Trenton, NJ, USA. ISBN 9781569024249 French translation: Les Jango, Éditions Zulma, Paris, France, 2020, ISBN 978-2-84304-846-3
  • The Messiah of Darfur, Awraq Publishing House, Cairo, 2012 French translation: Le Messie du Darfour, Éditions Zulma, Paris, France, 2016, ISBN 9782843047794
Short stories
  • At the Peripheries of Sidewalks, Awraq Publishing House, Cairo, 2005
  • A Woman from Kampo Kadees, Awraq Publishing House, Cairo, 2005 published in French as Une femme du camp de Kadis, in Nouvelles du Soudan, Magellan & Cie, 2010
  • The Daily remains of the Night, Awraq Publishing House, Cairo, 2010
  • The Music of the Bones, Awraq Publishing House, Cairo, 2011
  • The Butcher's Daughter, in The Book of Khartum, anthology of short stories, Comma Press, UK 2016

Further reading
gollark: Trying to map everything onto a one-dimensional political scale is a terrible idea.
gollark: I'm distrustful of any economic system which runs on central planning, which is problematic for many, many reasons.
gollark: But the actual values are pretty subjective.
gollark: I mean, it *sort of* does? You can say something like "X system is good at satisfying Y values", and that is at least... objectively testable?
gollark: Which is pretty subjective, so kind of lacking the "right about everything" part.

See also

References
  1. "Sudan bans my books: Novelist Sakin charges - Arab - Books". Ahram Online. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  2. Network, Bhakti Shringarpure for Warscapes, part of the Guardian Africa (2014-12-12). "'I write to expel my fear' - storytelling in the Sudans". the Guardian. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  3. Lynx Qualey, Marcia (2017-04-22). "Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin Wins 'Committed Book Prize' for Novel Seized at Recent Khartoum Book Fair". ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  4. "Les Jango - Editions Zulma". www.zulma.fr. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  5. "Faris Bilala et le lion - Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin". Babelio (in French). Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  6. "Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin — internationales literaturfestival berlin". www.literaturfestival.com. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  7. "Crossing Borders - stimmen afrikas". CROSSING BORDERS: translate – transpose – communicate (in German). Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  8. "Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin". www.banipal.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
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