River Spirit 

Leila Aboulela 

Saqi Books (2023)

Reviewed by Bashabi Fraser

Leila Aboulela’s sixth novel, River Spirit, fulfils the promise of this Scottish-based writer, and first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, with its capacity to immerse and enlighten the reader. Aboulela weaves a fictional narrative around historic events in her country of origin, Sudan. The novel is set between 1877 and 1898, when a man claiming to be the Mahdi, or redeemer, attracts the disaffected and disenfranchised and leads an uprising against Egyptian-Ottoman domination. The death of General Gordon, who had been sent to evacuate the Egyptian rulers from Khartoum, signals both the defeat of British colonial power and the Ottoman Empire. The novel ends with defeat of the ‘fake’ Mahdi’s forces, and the restoration of Anglo-Egyptian colonial rule in Sudan. The story unfolds through the perspective of several characters, the first and third person narratives intersecting in a rich tapestry of revelations. 

In her quest to retrieve the historic past of her country, Aboulela researched the  Sudan Archive of papers at Durham University, in which a petition for a runaway slave girl and a bill for sale caught her attention. Aboulela was convinced that the girl’s name, Zamzam, could only be her slave name, and further that a painting of her from the European male gaze could only have been possible if she was a slave. The linking thread between Aboulela’s homeland, Sudan, and Aberdeen where she is based, is routed through the character of Robert, an artist, who, having lost his wife in a fire, abandons painting and takes up a job in Khartoum as a ship’s engineer. The scenes on the river Nile and Robert’s encounter with Zamzam, whose real name is Akuany, bring back his artist’s desire to paint. Aware that no European male would be allowed into the women’s quarters, Aboulela allows us to realise that Robert would have bought Akuany in order to paint her. Here is a rare glimpse into the reality of the East African slave trade in literature, which has not received the same attention as the West African slave trade. 

Akuany’s native village is attacked while she is swimming in the river. She and her little brother are orphaned in the carnage that leaves her village derelict. The siblings are saved by the itinerant merchant Yaseen, who leaves them in the care of his sister. She adopts the brother and sells Akuany as a slave to a Turkish family who rename her Zamzam. Her spirit is like the river – the White Nile she loves and identifies with, indomitable and sustaining. 

There are strong women in this novel. Salha, Yaseen’s intelligent and educated wife; Yaseen’s mother, Fatimah, who trades and profits from the conflict like Brecht’s Mother Courage; Hadija, the kind, compassionate older cook, who is protective of Akuany and who is killed for refusing to acknowledge the false Mahdi. This is a complex story with strong characterisation, even in its depiction of dangerously weak men like Musa who, disgruntled in love, becomes a follower of the Mahdi and a sworn enemy of Yaseen, the principled merchant, turned religious scholar.

The importance of a compassionate religion, built on a love of humanity, is the driving force of this powerful novel. As Sudan is splintered by civil war today, the historical past in River Spirit reaffirms the resilience of a people, bringing hope for a future free from fear.

https://saqibooks.com/books/saqi/river-spirit

Bashabi Fraser

Bashabi Fraser CBE is a poet, children’s writer, editor, translator and academic.