Ibrahim Ishaq

Ibrahim Ishaq (Arabic: إبراهيم إسحق‎, 1946 - 23 Jan 2021), also referred to as Ibrāhīm Isḥāq Ibrāhīm, was a Sudanese novelist, short story writer and academic researcher. Most of his narrative works are set in his native Darfur region of western Sudan. From 1969 on, he published six novels and three collections of short stories, as well as academic studies about the history and literature of Africa. Through his fiction and language, he introduced life and culture of Darfur to readers in other parts of the country.^[1]

Life and artistic career[]

Ishaq was born in Wada’a Village in today's state of East Darfur, Sudan, in 1946. After primary education in the cities of Al-Fashir and Omdurman, he graduated from the Teachers Training Institute in Omdurman in 1969 and worked as teacher of English in secondary schools. He obtained an M.A. degree from the University of Khartoum’s Institute for Afro–Asian Studies, where he also worked as a researcher. In the 1980s, he moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he taught English until he returned to Sudan in 2006. In Sudan, he served as member of the jury for literary awards, such as the Al-Tayeb Salih Prize for Creative Writing, sponsored by Abdel Karim Merghani Cultural Centre as well as for the Al-Tayeb Salih International Award for Creative Writing.

In 1969, Ishaq had published his first novel, It Happened in the Village, which was followed by five more novels and three collections of short stories. In his stories taking place in East Darfur, he made use of the local style of language and specific cultural references of his native region, which first alienated some readers in other regions of Sudan. In an interview with Sudanow magazine in 2017, he stated that there was no other option for him, but to make his characters talk like they do in real life.^[2][3] According to an obituary in Sudanow Magazine, the Sudanese Writers Union judged his novels as innovative in language and subject-matter, presenting new images from Western Sudan. In 2004, Ishaq was awarded an honorary doctorate from Al Fashir University. In January 2021, he passed away while on medical treatment in the United States, aged 75.^[4]

Ibrahim Ishaq is a really great writer with novels that presented majestic technical images from Western Sudan, seen for the first time in Sudanese literature. It is a world nearly unknown to the people of central and northern Sudan.

— Renowned Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih, as quoted in Sudanow magazine 2021

Selected works[]

The original Arabic titles are given in English translation:

Novels:

• It Happened in the Village (1969)
• The Works of Night and the Town (1971)
• The Old School Festival (1976)
• The News of Miss Miyakaya (1980-2001)
• Turmoil in Kilimando (1999-2002)
• The Nourains Scandal (2004)

Short story collections:

• People From Kafa
• Tales From the Villages
• Kabbashiyya’s Petitions

In 2016, his short story The Opening in Kaltooma’s Fence was included in the anthology Literary Sudans, translated by Adil Babikir.^[5]

Among others, his scholarly publications include The Emigrations of the Hilali Tribes from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa and Bilad As-Sudan (1996) and The Folktale in Africa (1977). Furthermore, he published numerous articles and studies about literary works and the heritage of his country in Sudanese and Arab newspapers, periodicals and magazines.^[4]

See also[]

• Sudanese literature
• List of Sudanese writers

Further reading[]

• El-Nour, Eiman. “The Development of Contemporary Literature in Sudan.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 28, no. 3, 1997, pp. 150–162. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3821000. Accessed 12 Feb. 2021.
• Ibrahim Ishaq’s short story ‘The Opening in Kaltooma’s Fence’, translated by Adil Babikir, as published in the anthology Literary Sudans (2016)
• Shringarpure, Bhakti et al. (2016) Literary Sudans: An Anthology of Literature from Sudan and South Sudan. Trenton: The Red Sea Press, ISBN 978-1569024348

Notes and references[]