Haju the Funj visits an old Hausa healer called Faki Harun (West African healers are well-known in Sudan), and asks him to cure his lame leg, a curse that has struck many Arab tribes from Halfa to the Rizeygat, reminiscent of the ancient Abu Zayd al-Hilali’s curse. He has an odd relationship with Faki Harun’s three daughters, to whom he tells many stories related to his participation in the “Liberation War,” together with other strange characters like Radiyya. The era of the novel remains vague until the end, when the reader discovers that the Liberation War is actually the sum of all the wars that have devastated the country, from the Funj era to the modern civil war, if not all the wars worldwide—Haju mentions historical figures from varying historical periods from Antiquity to Modern History, like Assurbanipal, ‘Uqba bin Nafi‘, Gordon, Kitchener, al-Mahdi, Hassan Turabi, and John Garang, among others.

Approximate number of pages: 207 p.

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