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In this brilliantly clever fictionalised memoir, award-winning author Jamal Mahjoub interrogates how the first generation of Northern Sudanese citizens undertook the momentous task of creating a newly independent nation.Exiled in a dilapidated hotel in South-West France, Sharif looks back on his rich and eventful life to date. Memories of a bohemian existence in England and France - a time of love affairs and excess - clash with more recent memories of navigating the volatile and unprecedented political situation in North Africa.
With wry wit, Sharif recalls the wealth of extraordinary characters who have passed through his life and tries to make sense of an existence lived in disarray
About the author
Jamal Mahjoub was born in London in 1960 and spent his formative years in Khartoum, Sudan.
Since then he has settled in a number of cities, including London, Aarhus, Barcelona and, more recently, Amsterdam. The author of seven novels, his work, fiction and non-fiction, has been critically acclaimed and widely translated. He has published six crime novels featuring private detective Makana, using the pen name Parker Bilal.
To find out more, visit jamalmahjoub.com.
Summary
In this brilliantly clever fictionalised memoir, award-winning author Jamal Mahjoub interrogates how the first generation of Northern Sudanese citizens undertook the momentous task of creating a newly independent nation.
Exiled in a dilapidated hotel in South-West France, Sharif looks back on his rich and eventful life to date. Memories of a bohemian existence in England and France - a time of love affairs and excess - clash with more recent memories of navigating the volatile and unprecedented political situation in North Africa.
With wry wit, Sharif recalls the wealth of extraordinary characters who have passed through his life and tries to make sense of an existence lived in disarray.
Foreword
In this brilliantly clever fictionalised memoir, award-winning author Jamal Mahjoub interrogates how the first generation of Northern Sudanese citizens undertook the momentous task of creating a newly independent nation.
Additional text
A rich picture, both of Africa's vast, seemingly insuperable problems - and of the moral dilemmas faced by a well-meaning, ineffectual stranger
