Morning in Serra Mattu

Book excerpt: A mosaic of interrelated stories exploding with personality, myth, and geohistorical weight, Morning in Serra Mattu is a profound, joyful meditation on life in modern Sudan. Arif Gamal seamlessly blends large-scale political realities with the local and the traditional: “old villages/whose ancient way is so composed/each single blade of grass is known/and in its place.” Epic in scope, spellbinding in its intimacy, generosity, and wisdom, Morning in Serra Mattu is the book we didn’t know we needed. how thrilling it was in the earliest morning to race barefoot down the sandy slopes and dunes with all the bellowing goats and dogs and sheep and other animals for their first morning drink and to swim in the fresh waters of the flowing river while the thousand upon thousand of high unhindered Nubian stars began to fall away before a tinge of milky line along the hills until light grew from nearly nothing to an immensity —from “Return to Serra Mattu”