Spanning more than six decades of Sudan’s post-independence history, this collection features work by some of Sudan’s most renowned modern poets, largely unknown in the United States. Adil Babikir’s extensive introduction provides a conceptual framework to help the English reader understand the cultural context. Translated from Arabic, the collection addresses a wide range of themes—identity, love, politics, Sufism, patriotism, war, and philosophy—capturing the evolution of Sudan’s modern history and cultural intersections. Modern Sudanese Poetry features voices as diverse as the country’s ethnic, cultural, and natural composition. By bringing these voices together, Babikir provides a glimpse of Sudan’s poetry scene as well as the country’s modern history and post-independence trajectory.

"Spanning more than six decades of Sudan's post-independence history, this collection features work by some of Sudan's most renowned modern poets, largely unknown in the United States. Adil Babikir's extensive introduction provides a conceptual framework to help the English reader understand the cultural context. Translated from Arabic, the collection addresses a wide range of themes--identity, love, politics, Sufism, patriotism, war, and philosophy--capturing the evolution of Sudan's modern history and cultural intersections. Modern Sudanese Poetry features voices as diverse as the country's ethnic, cultural, and natural composition. By bringing these voices together, Babikir provides a glimpse of Sudan's poetry scene as well as the country's modern history and post-independence trajectory." -- Publisher's description

Offers a selection of African poetry arranged by country

A mosaic of interrelated stories exploding with personality, myth, and geohistorical weight, Morning in Serra Mattu is a profound, joyful meditation on life in modern Sudan. Arif Gamal seamlessly blends large-scale political realities with the local and the traditional: “old villages/whose ancient way is so composed/each single blade of grass is known/and in its place.” Epic in scope, spellbinding in its intimacy, generosity, and wisdom, Morning in Serra Mattu is the book we didn’t know we needed. how thrilling it was in the earliest morning to race barefoot down the sandy slopes and dunes with all the bellowing goats and dogs and sheep and other animals for their first morning drink and to swim in the fresh waters of the flowing river while the thousand upon thousand of high unhindered Nubian stars began to fall away before a tinge of milky line along the hills until light grew from nearly nothing to an immensity —from “Return to Serra Mattu”

The January Children depicts displacement and longing while also questioning accepted truths about geography, history, nationhood, and home. The poems mythologize family histories until they break open, using them to explore aspects of Sudan's history of colonial occupation, dictatorship, and diaspora. Several of the poems speak to the late Egyptian singer Abdelhalim Hafez, who addressed many of his songs to the asmarani--an Arabic term of endearment for a brown-skinned or dark-skinned person. Elhillo explores Arabness and Africanness and the tensions generated by a hyphenated identity in those two worlds.

The Moral Judgement of Butterflies is the award winning debut poetry collection by K.Eltinaé. These poignant poems serve as a survival manifesto for physical & psychological trauma touching upon over twenty years of curated soul work on the immigrant experience. These poems move both towards and away from home recounting an ever-present exile in the wake of displacement delivered with universal empathy, the narrator's hope emanates even from the nadir of his layered struggles living as an African immigrant in Europe.