Stella Gaitano Translated into English By Asha El-Said

The introduction for Stella's 2nd collection is written by Ustaz Kamal Gizouli.
It was one of the instances that I felt inadequate translating such 'grand' Arabic!
I resorted to my stock of rhetoric, poetic, political and all...of the rich Arabic
Language to be able to coin equivalents in English.
Hence I apologize for any 'damage' I caused to Gizouli's original script. (Asha).
***

Preface
Stella, A brilliant voice of the shocking Literature of the War
By: Kamal Al Gizouli
I cannot claim that this is a proficient critique of the Second Collection of South-Sudanese writer, Stella Gaitano. If anyone should attempt a grand critique to compromise between creative text and relevant literary methodology and stylistics as way-in to psychological, sociological, linguistic, and perhaps, as solution to problems of the relationship between the language of Literature and Criticism, they should find their way to journals, magazines, debates and other similar platforms. Specialized Radio and TV programmes may also be more suitable than an entrance to a small house hidden by the branches of mango and papaya trees.
Stella gave me the honour to welcome her Readers and I promise not to touch on any ‘complicated ‘concepts. I also apologize for tapping lightly, but I hope informatively, on the whole Collection which is my contribution to celebrating it.
The writer devoted her First Collection, (Wilting Flowers: Zuhur Zabila), published 2004 by Azza, Khartoum, for her creative models of Literature of the War to the narrating of Short Story following the example of the Shed Blood Heritage that had been dominant during the 40 years struggle between Southern and Northern Sudan.
This Second Collection is about the aftermath of Separation/Independence of South Sudan. In the newly formed African Country, the bombarding of the ‘’Social Affairs’’ is marked much louder than the silent guns of the era of ‘’National Affairs’’ between the two sides of a Country now ripped into two Countries.
The term ‘Literature of the War’ has many interpretations. It does not necessarily reflect a view concerning the martial experience of armies and simplicity apparent in describing processes of assault and retreat in varied styles of Poetry or Prose which are mere reflections of military gazettes.
We refer here to a dimension further than monism and simplicity that cannot be reached except by delving into the military experience with all its elements of stress and conformity dormant in the human spirit of confrontation and résistance when faced with what threatens his existence. This spirit is magnified in the dialectic confrontation between the desire to live and the readiness to die for a cause. It resembles the incompatibility between this eminent cause and the gloomy reality of corruption and favouritism left sometimes behind a militant in spite of his sacrifice when infidelity changes revolutionists’ skins and the tables turn over. This is Stella’s core theme!
Stella also dwells on more complications that cannot be solved by a writer without living the People’s experiences, visions, thoughts, feelings and emotions of the war. She went further to the consequences of the war and what it does to the lowest classes of the society. This community that remains hopeful after the war with no real hope of regaining a drop of what is lost or what they suffered.
A third dimension of the term which goes even deeper in meaning is when the writer, in this case Stella, succeeds in personalizing the war. She reflects what goes on in her characters’ minds: their fears and dreams, their sorrow and joy, their ups and downs and their concept of what is within themselves and everything around them.
Hence, in spite of horrors of the war, this Literature becomes a communal necessity that is difficult to be disposed of. The fact that the literary work is the creation of an’ individual’ does not mean that it addresses a ‘special’ group. It refers more to the writer’s personal experience of the war and his or her ability to assimilate and later ruminate it offering the reader with pleasure and guidance.
Stella has chosen Narrative as her style in general and Short Story in particular. She drew her aesthetic and cultural vision from a rationalized view between Short Story and Folk Tale and Conundrum as an ancient art of the nations specially Africans represented by people of South Sudan to whom Stella relates.
Yamani Saeed defines Short Story as, ‘short lingual band’, in which case Stella has to realize the different techniques and intellectual influences of her historical, Eco-political and Socio-cultural sources.
In doing this, Stella magnifies two historical realities in her life. The first is her birth and early life in the Northern Sudan. The Christian child of a Southern origin, born, brought up and educated to University level in an Islamic Arabic speaking environment. Clearly affected by the Northern Sudan culture, she chose Arabic Language as her medium of Creative Writing. She states that doing this, she secures a wider readership. She didn’t adopt Latuka like the Kenyan Narrator, Njoki Wathiang, who risked quitting English writing to use his Mother Tongue, Kikuyu Language. But lately he reversed to English as in spite of the large Kikuyu community in Kenya, he felt limited.
This is a problem that beats the fair political ideology of giving local and other Afro-Sudanese Languages a chance to survive.
However, no obstacle succeeded in hindering this young writer’s empathy with millions of her kin facing the same situation. They were all forced to displace to the relatively richer Northern Sudan driven by the war which had been glazing since 1955 in the poorer Southern Sudan. They lived in the ghettos of towns in areas gnawed by poverty and hard toil. They did all kinds of jobs suffering the humility of being under rated and abused, ethnically, religiously, culturally and linguistically. At the end of the day they consume what remains of their energy in sex, gambling, beating wives and kids, watching obscene films, drinking cheap wine and entering into endless bloody fights for one of the above reasons and end up in one of the custody cells and perhaps prisons.
The second historical reality of her life was the prophesied result of the 2011 Southerners’ Elections that sided Separation with a majority of 98%. The following consequences caused Stella to emit her stand with this Collection and two widely read articles written in a hybrid Arabic between classic (fusha) Arabic and Sudanese colloquial Arabic The articles entitled: ‘Before I became a foreigner’, and ‘After I became a foreigner’. She also presented a paper as a guest of honour to Tayeb Salih International Award prize giving celebration run annually by Zain Communication Company. She stated in her address that she still suffers mentally and emotionally from the faltering enthusiasm for Independence as a shooting platform towards the building of a grand healthy Home Land that becomes a cradle for early memories of childhood and youth with all their joy and pains. Her least expectation is to ensure an Independence that is capable of fulfilling the patient hopes for Social Justice, or else, Independence is just a synonym of Separation.
Stella’s views rate her very high as supporter of National Independence and Social Justice in the face of destructive mattocks of corruption and injustice. Her word is a weapon ready to silence whoever fiddles with the Rights of her People.
These same qualities are Stella’s gate to the radical National and Social transformation of her Country.
Dear Reader,
Welcome.....
K. Al Gizouli
Shambat/Hijra
November 2014

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