When a little boy drowns in the Nile, a Sudanese village is forced to confront its racist past in Reem Gaafar’s debut novel A Mouth Full of Salt. Narrated through a choral protagonist, the novel weaves together the lives of villagers who are suddenly beset by a curse: the drowning is followed by another death, and cattle begin to contract a mysterious illness.

The village is an allegory intended to reflect the broader history of Sudan. A Mouth Full of Salt moves across time, from the 1940s to the 1980s, allowing the reader to glimpse the turbulent civil strife that led to the formation of South Sudan in 2011. Entwined stories of three women from different generations are narrated through flashbacks; Fatima and Sulafa are Arab and from the North, and Nyamakeem is Black and from the South.

Gaafar was keen to explore the history of anti-Blackness and systemic oppression experienced by Black Southerners. She is further perturbed by the fact that ever since South Sudan became a country, there has been an illusion that the problem of anti-Blackness in Sudan was a thing of the past. But there is “the undertone of racism” that still lurks in Sudanese society.

A Mouth Full of Salt was published just as war erupted in Sudan in April 2015, and many of the themes of the novel seemed prescient. The book, however, had been in the works for several years. Gaafar has been passionate about writing since childhood, but succumbed to family pressure and became an emergency medicine doctor. She continued writing, but time was not on her side until she switched to research-based public health work.

Gafaar also moved around a lot as a child, living in Jordan, the UAE, and New Zealand, though her parents ensured that she returned home to Sudan for long spells. Not only is Sudan at the core of her work, but it seems that Sudan and writing itself are connected for Gaafar. “I started writing more during medical school because that was the first time I had lived in Sudan,” she shared.

After several years of laboring over it, Gaafar submitted A Mouth Full of Salt for a manuscript competition called the Island Prize for a Debut Novel from Africa in 2023. To her surprise, she won. “This is not a big prize and doesn’t give you lots of money,” she explained, “but it gives you editorial support. I wanted someone from the publishing world to look at my work and to just hold my hand through it.”

A year later, the novel was published by Saqi Books (UK), and Gaafar now joins a small but successful group of Sudanese writers (Leila Aboulela, Safia Elhillo, and Fatin Abbas) writing in English rather than in Arabic. Gaafar has not looked back since and is working on yet another novel featuring women across different generations.

A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar: https://saqibooks.com/books/saqi/a-mouth-full-of-salt/

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