Baraka Sakin: Sudanese novelist wins another international prize, a critical view of his themes| Sudanow Magazine

Kassala, Sudan (Sudanow) - Sudanese writer and story teller, Abdul-Aziz Barak Sakin, 62, from Kassala, state, won yet another international prize from Spain. Journalist and writer, Mohamed Osman Adam, takes the opportunities to express his critical view and shade light on some of the themes that permeates the work of Sakin.
To me his thematic idea was set as early as his first novel: The Jungo: Stakes of the Earth, 2015: a quest for cementing and entrenching his roots on the land. This is an identity crisis of a community and an identity crisis for an individual.
This crisis is further amplified by the relocation from the land to exile, from the land that he has yet to find, to reach to entrench his roots in. It was when he attempts to take such action that he comes in confrontation with the norms and traditions in the community where he half belongs, with political system custodians of those norms.|
“In my village, I knew every tree, every season. That is the language of a place.” as he put it in an interview with Passa Porta (https://www.passaporta.be/en/magazine) 2026. When, as the case of the person, Sakin, removed from this socio-cultural milieu he, the writer Abdul Aziz Baraka Sakin, becomes, not a refugee, a person removed from his home area to another, but an exile, a person who even when within his village, he remained psychologically exiled, remote and remove from the roots he would be aspiring, remote within himself, his self and his belonging and pertinence.

It is equally aspiring to a community that will take this shuttered, and halved belonging into consideration, creates and embrace diversity, where the rootless, “The Jungo” part of the soil, but not part of the land, could be the real “Stakes of the Earth” as his first acclaimed, 2015, novel put it.
It goes in line with this sense of lack of firm belonging to the land that stems his political standing towards the current genocidal war of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)- the infamous Janjaweed sibling, led by the Hemaidti, the Sudanese equivalent of the infamous Genghis Khan and first Great Khan of the Mongol empire.
And as he has never been a physical fighter, he opted for his points of strength, the writer “Literature is the only way to talk about war”, and “am not a fighter, am writer.”
Abdul-Aziz Baraka Sakin, standing against the new Mogol is not a political, is an existential fight, a fight against those who want to uproot an already floating Nile perch.
This was reflected in all his writing and his essays and comment on the social media: a stench, grout and grounded defence for freedom and for community writes to survive and to thrive.
“Sudanese writer Abdul-Aziz Baraka Sakin (63) places community at the heart of his work, even when writing about one of the world’s greatest humanitarian crises” the Spanish Passa Porta said in an interview with Sakin , during his residency at Passa Porta in March 2026.
It was in Spain that he received yet another prize in his accolades of merit for this outstanding performance, literary work that reflect the self in the community and the soil in the land, creating fantasia and literary works that takes him and place him in different echelon, while Tayeb Salih looks into the past of his community to draw lesson and aspirations, goes back to the community to draw strength, Sakin goes back to the community seeking to rebuild it, to dismantle it rotten, non-reconciled psychosocial elements, in order for him to build a better future. Tayeb Salih sees the beauty of an old and deeply rooted community, Sakin, seeks to establish a better and beautiful community. And in each the beauty of Sudan is reflected, a multi-cultural society that has to come to term with its own self and its sons.
A brief look at his creative work spanning from 2015 “The Jungo: Stakes of the Earth, Birth: Selected Stories, 2021, up Samahani, 2024, Foundry Editions , the string that hold the center could clearly be felt, seen, felt and traced.
This year, the jury of the 12th annual Commission Optimists Awards announced that Sakin has been awarded the 2026 Freedom of Expression Award in recognition of his “courageous literary career and unwavering commitment to the causes of human rights and dignity.”

The award citation, signed by Editor-in-Chief Julia Higueras, stated that this honor recognizes Sakin’s career, characterized by integrity and resilience in the face of challenges. The jury described the writer’s voice as “a powerful testament against censorship and injustice,” praising his role in defending fundamental rights despite the persecution and exile he has endured.
The Sudanow magazine, has always celebrated the success achieved by this prominent Sudanese novelist. In 2020, the late Dr Yahiya El Hassan, under the editorial supervision of Aysha Suleiman, then the editor in Chief, wrote a compelling article when he won the award for The Jung”: https://sudanow-magazine.net/page.php?subId=35&Id=1169.

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