Alhassan Albackery: The New Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Sudan

Alhassan Albackery: The New Gabriel Garcia Marquez of Sudan
Bokk lovers,
!Let's all celberate the birth of the new The Marquez of Africa
Below is a quick review for a new novel that we need to let the world know about it. It's Ahwal Almuharib Alqadim (see more info on how to get the book at the bottom of this email).
The Sudanese American Book Club in Philadelphia is planning to discuss/review the book in it's next monthly meeting of March 3rd.
To join our Book Club, click here: http://bookclub.meetup.com/244/about/

I hope you enjoy the book
Mohamed Elgadi
__________________________________________________________________________________Burma: Alradheyah just arrived, hurry-up.
Narrator (Khalifa or Hajou is his name): why the rush?
Burma: you should hurry before another dog will get her
Narrator: come on, Burma, we should not talk this way about such beautiful things to avoid harm
Burma: oh, poor human. How come talking openly about beautiful things be harmful?
Narrator: and also we should wait for night to fall
Burma: ####### in the dark? The daylight is the best time for this so you can see her shining hairy skin, her sexy legs, and her long beautiful ears. Tell you what? stop these silly human excuses and move it to catch with her.

From: Ahwal Almuharib Alqadeem (Situations of the Old Warrior), p.48.

Twenty-two years ago, we were introduced to the magical world of Gabriel Garcia Marquez when the Nobel Prize went to him. We discovered new venues and power for literature thru this amazing Columbian novelist, and the Magical Realism term was coined to describe works like One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I can say with confidence of a non-professional critical reader that a new school of Magical Realism is born in Sudan by the brilliant work of Mr. Alhassan Albackeri. In his newest novel (he published two novels before this one in 1997, and 2002), this marvelous writer takes us in his fantasy world where humans talk to animals, learn from them, and live with them in a natural harmonious habitat (see above excerpts from a conversation with his friend female dog Burma).

The magical world of the Sudanese writer appears even more powerful than the Columbian (may be because I read him directly, not translated). He makes humans share the metaphysical powers of gods, and to correct/reform the miss-creation of body and soul thru the phenomenal character of Fakki Haroun and his three daughters Kagou, Mary/Lari, Fatteina.

The wonderful writer takes much liberty in using the Holy Prophetic language of Hadith and Koran. Here are some examples: Welcome, the lady of the women of Bottanah (pp. 44, 15, and again in p. 159: She was singing in a perfect ostrich tongue (brings to mind the Koranic sentence of [We revealed it in a perfect Arabic tongue]). .

Since I read the popular novel of D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, I have not read something more powerful on ####### like this novel. The Magical Realism of Alhassan Albackeri takes us beyond the world of D.H. Lawrence. He eloquently describes the intimate ####### acts that remove barriers between humans, animals, birds, and trees. Many examples for this powerful intimate act are found in pages 49, 51, 81, 100, 126, 127, and 140-142.

Like Marquez, Albackeri also mixes reality and fantasy, when he moves and wanders freely from times in the past to times in the future, and makes you feel it very natural. The worlds of the Fur, Hausa, Fulani, Anag, Dinka, Funj, Arabs of Rufaa, Daju, Masalit, etc interweave smoothly across the African history. He does the same with historical characters of Mahdi, John Garang, Mustapha Sid Ahmed, William Deng, and many others. He brings them together to give us this magical blend of reality and fantasy.

In Ahwal Almuharib Alqadim, you almost read/see and live the liberation wars and battles along the 207pp of this pioneer work. He ambiguously re-draws the wars and battles against the Turks, the British, the NIF, and imaginative invaders in the future. The enemy of the past is the same of the present, and would be the same enemy of the future.

I hope that the world would not need to wait 15 years to discover this novel, like the case of One Hundred Years of Solitude.


Mohamed Elgadi
Sudanese American Book Club Org
http://bookclub.meetup.c om/244/
Philadelphia, PA (USA)


P.S. the book was published in 2004 by the Cultural Center of Abdelkarim Merghani
Omdurman, Sudan

Available at al-Saqi Bookstore
26 Westbourne Grove W2
London, UK
Price: $22
pp. 207 (size 9x6 inches=23x15 centimeters)

Many thanks Mohamed for your comments and translation. I read your mail a few days ago but didn'r reply because I had been boycotting this board for quite along time. I would't rejoin actively unless some mebers who have written starkly filthy racial texts are dismissed from the Board. Thank you again and, please, brief me on the discussion you're undertaking on "Al-Mohareb". I would very much like to join any online discussion on my novel if that's possible. My e-mail address is:

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