“I shall lie like water on the Nile’s body,” writes Sudanese-Libyan poet Mohammed el-Fayturi in his beguiling poem Dig No Grave for Me. “Like the sun over my homeland’s fields.”
Nurtured by the sun and water, el-Fayturi envisions Sudan as a living being nourished by nature’s grace; a homeland that breathes through its rivers and fields. He places himself, and those who resist oppression and colonialism, in the position of nature itself: to serve, to protect, to give life, and never to steal or betray.
Like the sun, the fighters against tyranny rise each morning. They do not fail to return, they do not abandon the earth in darkness. And like the Nile’s waters, they continue to flow and run, remaining loyal, faithful, and alive.
For el-Fayturi, the fighter does not die, nor do they vanish into a grave as the oppressor might wish. In his verses, the oppressed endure and their cause ascends with every sunrise, refusing to be buried.
In our world today, where the oppressed are slaughtered in staggering numbers and where triumph is too often measured by violence and war, el-Fayturi’s words echo across time, showing us that true victory belongs not to conquerors but to those who carry a cause that outlives them.
Because such a cause never dies. It rises again, morning after morning, and generation after generation.
When el-Fayturi wrote this poem, Africa and the Arab world were still in the throes of struggle, fighting to cast off the weight of imperialism and claim their independence. In those years, belonging to a homeland meant far more than simply identifying with it; it meant defending it, standing by it, and carrying its pain as one’s own.
To be Sudanese was to protect it from the hands of oppression, and to be African was to fight, with unyielding resolve, for the continent’s freedom and dignity.
Many years later, the fight endures. The cause still rises, just as el-Fayturi so eloquently described, like the sun that never fails to return. And while the fight continues, poets like him and countless others have given the world a body of literature so rich and profound that it resists being contained within a summary.
Inside modern Sudanese poetry
Modern Sudanese literature stands as a mirror to the nation’s turbulent path through independence, civil war, and political unrest, yet it also captures the sensitive and emotional journeys of its people; their endurance, their tenderness, and their devotion to beauty, music, and art, even in the face of violence and loss.
Spanning more than six decades of Sudan’s post-independence history, Modern Sudanese Poetry (2019), an anthology edited and translated by Sudanese critic Adil Babikir, reads like a song without end, flowing from one verse to another, shifting in rhythm and tone, yet always returning to its central melody: an undying love for Sudan.
There is tender beauty, but there is also pain that grips the veins and squeezes until it spills out, dissolving into the next poem. From one sorrow to another, the blood of struggle seeps through the pages as if each line were written in red.
Yet the power and grace of the words transform that blood into resistance and into passion, a lifeblood that continues to flow despite the wars, the loss, and everything that tries to silence it.
What makes Sudanese literature unique is its place at the crossroads of two great worlds, African and Arab. It carries within it the spirit of African oral storytelling and the deep, meditative influence of Sufi imagery, bringing together voices and emotions that continue to inspire generations of writers.
Although only a small portion of Sudanese literature has reached audiences beyond its borders, limited by challenges such as a fragile publishing industry and the high cost of printing, Sudanese literature has played a defining role in shaping both African and Arab poetry. For instance, literary critic Abdel Goddous el-Khatim notes that Sudanese poet Muwaia Mohammed Nour was the first to introduce the stream of consciousness to modern Arab storytelling.
At its heart, modern Sudanese poetry is a bridge between ancient storytelling and contemporary vision, a space where heritage and hope come together, and where words continue to imagine a new future for the nation.
More than just words on a page, every line in Sudanese poetry carries its own sound, colour, and texture, much like the harmony that flows through weddings and family gatherings in Sudanese culture.
In Muhammad el-Mahdi el-Magzoub’s poem Wedding Parade, the reader is gently pulled by the hand into the heart of a Sudanese wedding, where the pulse and aesthetic imagery of the scene infuse every moment with sound and color so vivid that it eclipses everything else.
The image of Sudan, often shaped by foreign news channels and conflict, is replaced by one seen through the eyes of its own people, who know the country’s boundless beauty and joy. As el-Magzoub writes, “In the heat of daluka drumbeats, the young girls were casting charms, from kohl-lined eyes, where beauty felt at home.”
In many poems, Sudanese poets yearn for the innocence and simplicity of village life, for the laughter that once filled their homes, for the warmth of family gatherings under the shade of familiar trees. But where has all that warmth gone? It has drifted away and dissolved into the coldness of exile, the ache of distance, the silence left behind by war.
And yet, within their verses, the warmth still lives on. Each word feels like a gentle hug offered to Sudan itself, a hug the country longs for, and one that every Sudanese heart still needs.
El-Magzoub writes: “My whole heart is devoted to you, my homeland…I long for my innocent village that knows nothing about my sufferings.”
A river of love also flows through these pages, where stories of affection and delicacy are expressed openly, carrying readers into the soft, delicate emotions that live within the Sudanese heart. This love, in all its depth, carries the memory of ancestors who were themselves passionate lovers and poets of love.
In The Spring of Love (2019) by Sudanese poet Idris Jamma’, one feels as though they are sailing upon a Nile of love, surrounded by nature’s beauty, by plants and birds that mirror the emotions every Sudanese carries within.
“In the spring of love we used to savor, and sing and whisper, chasing birds from one branch to another,” he writes. At times, this love seems inseparable from the love of homeland, as if the two flow within the same current.
And like all great love stories that endure longing and distance, the relationship with homeland feels like that of a lover forever finding their way back, even after moments of absence or pain.
Even in exile, Sudanese poets continue to write with the ache of belonging, as if they have left parts of themselves behind. It is as though their ears still listen to the sounds of home, and their feet still walk the familiar paths, touching the raw soil that has always rooted them to their core.
Even far away, their parents’ voices still feed them songs; songs of return, carrying the eternal promise of going home. In Migrating from Sai (2019), Sudanese poet Jayli Abdel Rahman captures the weight of exile and the unbroken bond with family and homeland.
“From our parents’ mouths we were fed flaming songs, full of perseverance and promise, that one day we will come back to you, Sai, to rebuild our shacks and alleys,” he writes.
Those songs continue to echo in their ears, in their minds, and in their hearts. Some are soft and silent, others rise loud like the beat of drums, carrying them back to their homeland, a land that, at its core, holds endless beauty and stories untold.
This song never dies. It lives on, just as the fighters of their homeland live on, and just as the love for one’s homeland can never die.
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