What do you think?
Rate this book
A Line In The River
BRAND NEW, Exactly same ISBN as listed, Please double check ISBN carefully before ordering.
416 pages, Paperback
First published March 8, 2018
22 people are currently reading
510 people want to read
About the author
Jamal Mahjoub
23 books46 followersAka Parker Bilal
Jamal Mahjoub was born in London in 1960. After living in Liverpool for several years, the family moved to Sudan, his father’s home country. Mahjoub attended Comboni College, run by Italian priests. He subsequently received a grant from Atlantic College in , and continued his studies in geology at the university of Sheffield. While still a student he began publishing his literary texts in magazines. After several changes of location, northern Europe eventually became his home base – yet his African roots still play a central role in his books. They incorporate stories and history, science and superstition and at the same time discuss the living conditions in which people from different backgrounds live together or in close proximity with each other.
»In the Hour of Signs« (1996) tells the story of the British conquest of at the end of the 19th century. The book transforms both protagonists of the conflict, the Muslim leader Mohammed Ahmed, called Mahdi, and the English General Gordon into symbolic figures. The main characters are farmers, shepherds or simple soldiers, and the uprising is described from their perspective as country dwellers or representatives of the colonial power. Mahjoub’s historical novel »The Carrier« (1998) deals with one of the pivotal moments in European thought: the development of the telescope and the corresponding astronomical methods of calculation, which paved the way for the heliocentric view of the world and the separation of science and religion. Mahjoub described his motivation: »I was fascinated by the question of why such a significant change in thought as marked by the Renaissance in Europe, didn’t occur in the Islamic world.« The young scholar Rashid al-Kenzy, son of a Nubian slave and falsely accused of murder, is reprieved by the dey of Algiers on condition that Rashid procure him the optical device, of whose capabilities people tell the most wondrous tales – and thus Rashid sets out on a long journey. In 2006 Majoub published his novel »Nubian Indigo«, whose story is set during the construction of the Aswan High Dam. »The Drift Latitudes« (2007) has present-day London as its setting. A successful architect, daughter of an immigrant from Trinidad and a German father whom she can hardly remember, receives several letters from her half-sister in , which cause her to begin to deal with her background.
The author has been awarded the Prix d’Astrobale for the novel »Travelling with Djinns« (2003) and the Guardian/Heinemann African Short Story Prize. After spending many years in the Danish city of Aarhus, Mahjoub is now living in Barcelona.
Jamal Mahjoub was born in London in 1960. After living in Liverpool for several years, the family moved to Sudan, his father’s home country. Mahjoub attended Comboni College, run by Italian priests. He subsequently received a grant from Atlantic College in , and continued his studies in geology at the university of Sheffield. While still a student he began publishing his literary texts in magazines. After several changes of location, northern Europe eventually became his home base – yet his African roots still play a central role in his books. They incorporate stories and history, science and superstition and at the same time discuss the living conditions in which people from different backgrounds live together or in close proximity with each other.
»In the Hour of Signs« (1996) tells the story of the British conquest of at the end of the 19th century. The book transforms both protagonists of the conflict, the Muslim leader Mohammed Ahmed, called Mahdi, and the English General Gordon into symbolic figures. The main characters are farmers, shepherds or simple soldiers, and the uprising is described from their perspective as country dwellers or representatives of the colonial power. Mahjoub’s historical novel »The Carrier« (1998) deals with one of the pivotal moments in European thought: the development of the telescope and the corresponding astronomical methods of calculation, which paved the way for the heliocentric view of the world and the separation of science and religion. Mahjoub described his motivation: »I was fascinated by the question of why such a significant change in thought as marked by the Renaissance in Europe, didn’t occur in the Islamic world.« The young scholar Rashid al-Kenzy, son of a Nubian slave and falsely accused of murder, is reprieved by the dey of Algiers on condition that Rashid procure him the optical device, of whose capabilities people tell the most wondrous tales – and thus Rashid sets out on a long journey. In 2006 Majoub published his novel »Nubian Indigo«, whose story is set during the construction of the Aswan High Dam. »The Drift Latitudes« (2007) has present-day London as its setting. A successful architect, daughter of an immigrant from Trinidad and a German father whom she can hardly remember, receives several letters from her half-sister in , which cause her to begin to deal with her background.
The author has been awarded the Prix d’Astrobale for the novel »Travelling with Djinns« (2003) and the Guardian/Heinemann African Short Story Prize. After spending many years in the Danish city of Aarhus, Mahjoub is now living in Barcelona.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 28, 2023
Mahjoub slips back and forth between re-visiting his childhood haunts in Khartoum, and pondering the fate of Sudan. The local scenes he paints are beautiful, desolate, and disturbing all at once. Clearly, the city is exploding: “At independence in 1956, it was less a city than a small town. The population of the entire country was put at ten million. Today the capital alone rivals that figure.”
He examines Sudan’s parade of tragedies, with the politicians and generals torn between urging unity between people of differing races and religions, and insisting on the ethnic and religious purity that must divide them: “I’ve never understood the idea of national pride. The notion of being proud of the place one happened, by chance, to have been born requires fetishizing the complete randomness of the fact. … Here, no matter how bad things are, pride is the answer to everything, eclipsing all the country’s shortcomings.”
Mahjoub finds some glimmers of hope, as investment from Chinese and other sources starts to pay off. But he also names the looming dangers, with sometimes frightful accuracy: “In the old days the golden rule for any ruler was to keep the army happy. This is no longer the case. The military has been slowly carved up. Real power is now in the hands of the myriad of security forces, the complex web of intelligence agencies, with a combined force of between forty and fifty thousand operatives. The protests over pay suggest some form of brinksmanship is underway. The security forces are demonstrating that they are not afraid of the army. With their network of informers, it is they who rule the country.”
He examines Sudan’s parade of tragedies, with the politicians and generals torn between urging unity between people of differing races and religions, and insisting on the ethnic and religious purity that must divide them: “I’ve never understood the idea of national pride. The notion of being proud of the place one happened, by chance, to have been born requires fetishizing the complete randomness of the fact. … Here, no matter how bad things are, pride is the answer to everything, eclipsing all the country’s shortcomings.”
Mahjoub finds some glimmers of hope, as investment from Chinese and other sources starts to pay off. But he also names the looming dangers, with sometimes frightful accuracy: “In the old days the golden rule for any ruler was to keep the army happy. This is no longer the case. The military has been slowly carved up. Real power is now in the hands of the myriad of security forces, the complex web of intelligence agencies, with a combined force of between forty and fifty thousand operatives. The protests over pay suggest some form of brinksmanship is underway. The security forces are demonstrating that they are not afraid of the army. With their network of informers, it is they who rule the country.”
February 11, 2019
The author is a novelist which shows in some of his lyrical description of Khartoum and Sudan. He makes some interesting remarks and observations into the division of his country, the cause of the various unrests, the legacy left by West, the new influencer of China and Asia, religion, divisions, history and family. There's a bit of a shotgun approach in the content with topics of a page to three page containing the author's thoughts, comments or facts.
What would make the book better would have been a timeline of events, a summary of acronyms, a map and some structure to the content so it read more coherently rather than like a set of speech notes that have been thoroughly shuffled.
What would make the book better would have been a timeline of events, a summary of acronyms, a map and some structure to the content so it read more coherently rather than like a set of speech notes that have been thoroughly shuffled.
August 3, 2019
This is a sprawling book about Sudan, its history, postcolonial struggle to become nation, and its confusing present. Its author, Jamal Mahjoub, was largely raised in the Sudan, though born in England. He fled with his family in 1989 as an Islamist regime came to power. To write this book he returned to Khartoum intermittently over five years, from 2008 until 2012. Each of those years of return forms a section of this book, though there is not much to distinguish those section. Each revolves around a similar set of questions and meditations, and it is difficult to discern thematic movement.
If there is not much linear progression in this book, there is a kind of spiral eternal return to the topic of national identity. The author feels the tension within himself of a hybrid identity, and he finds in Sudan these same tensions. The books thus moves fluidly between personal reflection and larger scale observation. Khartoum (capital of North Sudan) appears stuck on the notion of building a unified national identity, but this clashes inevitably with the reality of the country. This emphasis in the North on a unified identity is part of what leads to conflict with the South or in Darfur. This unified identity is based on Islam and connection to the Arabic speaking world.
The author feels drawn to those who have proposed a hybrid identity for the Sudan. Positive portraits of political leaders or artists are always of those who found a level of comfort with hybridity. For example, I was glad to see a solid section devoted to the Islamic thinker Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, about whom Mahjoub writes: "...Taha envisaged a line that would allow Muslim and non-Muslim to live together as equals, offering a platform on which Northerners could share power with the non-Muslim South in a way that was acceptable and less offensive than a secular, non-religious government." (208). Note how it's not actually Taha's religious ideas that matter to the Mahjoub, but rather the way Taha's theology opens up the possibility of a hybrid identity.
This is a lengthy book at 378 pages, and it feels like it's been stitched together from a series of short essays broken up by small (too small!) photos. But it nevertheless feels like an important book, for its view of a city and country too often neglected, but also for the way it portrays Sudan as a microcosm of larger issues. Mahjoub points to the way the identity challenge experienced by the Sudan is evident throughout Africa, since the north and south of the continent can be seen as parallel to the north and south of Sudan. In the prologue Mahjoub argues that we should also see a connection between Sudan and the problems we now see everywhere around the globe (3). And I mostly agree that these are important connections, and that's why I read this book so attentively. We live in a time of natural hybridity, and one could argue that this is why nations and groups feel such pressure to settle on a unified identity.
I should mention that the overall portrait of the Sudan is not positive in this book. It is loving and respectful, but despairing in tone. The institutions that were begun with hope--universities, libraries, museums, parks, newspapers--have faded from public importance, and have become shells of their former selves. The extractive technology of large petroleum companies now have control, and the construction that's taking place appears overwhelmingly to be of gated and private buildings. The books and ideas that could be an inspiration to a new generation are no longer present in Khartoum, or so it seems in Mahjoub's portrait. Yet the recent images of young people taking to the streets and stirring to life have been more hopeful than I would have thought possible after reading this book. What was it that nourished these protests?
If there is not much linear progression in this book, there is a kind of spiral eternal return to the topic of national identity. The author feels the tension within himself of a hybrid identity, and he finds in Sudan these same tensions. The books thus moves fluidly between personal reflection and larger scale observation. Khartoum (capital of North Sudan) appears stuck on the notion of building a unified national identity, but this clashes inevitably with the reality of the country. This emphasis in the North on a unified identity is part of what leads to conflict with the South or in Darfur. This unified identity is based on Islam and connection to the Arabic speaking world.
The author feels drawn to those who have proposed a hybrid identity for the Sudan. Positive portraits of political leaders or artists are always of those who found a level of comfort with hybridity. For example, I was glad to see a solid section devoted to the Islamic thinker Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, about whom Mahjoub writes: "...Taha envisaged a line that would allow Muslim and non-Muslim to live together as equals, offering a platform on which Northerners could share power with the non-Muslim South in a way that was acceptable and less offensive than a secular, non-religious government." (208). Note how it's not actually Taha's religious ideas that matter to the Mahjoub, but rather the way Taha's theology opens up the possibility of a hybrid identity.
This is a lengthy book at 378 pages, and it feels like it's been stitched together from a series of short essays broken up by small (too small!) photos. But it nevertheless feels like an important book, for its view of a city and country too often neglected, but also for the way it portrays Sudan as a microcosm of larger issues. Mahjoub points to the way the identity challenge experienced by the Sudan is evident throughout Africa, since the north and south of the continent can be seen as parallel to the north and south of Sudan. In the prologue Mahjoub argues that we should also see a connection between Sudan and the problems we now see everywhere around the globe (3). And I mostly agree that these are important connections, and that's why I read this book so attentively. We live in a time of natural hybridity, and one could argue that this is why nations and groups feel such pressure to settle on a unified identity.
I should mention that the overall portrait of the Sudan is not positive in this book. It is loving and respectful, but despairing in tone. The institutions that were begun with hope--universities, libraries, museums, parks, newspapers--have faded from public importance, and have become shells of their former selves. The extractive technology of large petroleum companies now have control, and the construction that's taking place appears overwhelmingly to be of gated and private buildings. The books and ideas that could be an inspiration to a new generation are no longer present in Khartoum, or so it seems in Mahjoub's portrait. Yet the recent images of young people taking to the streets and stirring to life have been more hopeful than I would have thought possible after reading this book. What was it that nourished these protests?
May 17, 2023
I came to this after really enjoying some of Mahjoub’s fiction in the past. It’s one of those books that mixes memoir with history and travel that I think sometime divides readers who are looking for one thing or the other - although personally I rather enjoy this sort of approach.
Sadly conflict in Sudan is in the news once again, and although this book can’t give specifics of the current issues (it was published in 2018) it gives plenty of flavour to help the layman understand some of the relevant historical and political background. Sometimes it can be a bit repetitive as different chapters deal with different aspects of the same period/event but that is no bad thing for my memory at the moment…. Alongside this is a personal memoir, focusing in particular on the idea of identity - and especially as a parallel with Sudan’s own search for an identity and how this has been a precursor to many of today’s issues. I very much enjoyed it and felt that I learnt a lot - not just about Sudan but also wider human and geopolitical behaviours.
Sadly conflict in Sudan is in the news once again, and although this book can’t give specifics of the current issues (it was published in 2018) it gives plenty of flavour to help the layman understand some of the relevant historical and political background. Sometimes it can be a bit repetitive as different chapters deal with different aspects of the same period/event but that is no bad thing for my memory at the moment…. Alongside this is a personal memoir, focusing in particular on the idea of identity - and especially as a parallel with Sudan’s own search for an identity and how this has been a precursor to many of today’s issues. I very much enjoyed it and felt that I learnt a lot - not just about Sudan but also wider human and geopolitical behaviours.
March 31, 2020
The author grew up in Khartoum and in his adult life, he returned their annually from 2008 to 2012. The book is a collection of short essays about his thoughts on Khartoum, Sudan, and his family punctuated by pictures from his mother's collections. While the topics can be interesting, he jumps from topic to topic and one feels like one is just meandering around Khartoum on a hot day. It would have helped if the book had more structure to it. It gave me a picture of the city, but not a very clear one.
Read
July 26, 2018History from 1884-present was well done. Commentary on contemoporary life in Khartoum at times failed to keep my interest
August 27, 2024
Jamal Mahjoub's memoir of Khartoum shifts back and forth between past and present, memory and reality, stark realism and fantasy, dreary recitation of statics and lyrical descriptions of people and places. Sad desperation and hopelessness characterizes the narrative as much as wide-eyed optimism, the possibility of rejuvenation and recovery countered by the nearness of ever-present calamity in which neither Western or Eastern philosophies, politics, or religions have proved helpful. The author's skill as a novelist are apparent in this memoir as is the source of material found in his novels.
August 19, 2023
Beautiful and informative and disheartening. This book is not optimistic about the future, but it taught me a lot about an area of the world that I know virtually nothing about. The book winds through timelines like the river, shifting back and forth from 1800s to 1980s to present day. The nature of these jumps between eras made it somewhat difficult to track details about the development of Sudan from the 1800s to present. Despite this, the book painted an overall picture of the region.
October 18, 2020
Meandering through memory, history, and his experiences revisiting the city the author was raised in, this book is unlike anything I've ever read. I don't know what it is. I'm not sure the author knows what it is. But it is worth reading. A lot of fascinating information and my reading list from this book is a bit ridiculous.
July 31, 2020
This is a wonderful book that absorbs you into the life of the author and the history and forces that impacted Sudan. I am a fan of Jamal Mahjoub in the books written under the pen name of Parker Bilal.
August 7, 2021
Prose is pretty purple and the time line is disorganized but the descriptions of Khartoum, when you get them, are striking and provide excellent context for the scholar, tourist, or simply the curious
May 5, 2020
See my review on River Teeth!
July 1, 2020
A mesmerising book on Khartoum and Sudan, weaving memoir, travel, history, identity and politics into a fascinating whole. A wonderful book but for me just a bit too long.
December 31, 2020
Beautiful writing, powerful anecdotes and eerie photographs reminiscent of Sebald, Cole, and Odaatje. Like Capital about Delhi or Maximum City about Calcutta, I can’t wait to reread this book.
January 13, 2021
Excellent book. Relevant, informative, even while discursive and meditative. I could have gone on reading many more pages (except the book ended).
April 10, 2023
It took me awhile to really sink into this book, but by the last 1/3rd I felt like it was clicking and I was really into it
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews