02-December-2024

Writer Mansour Alsouwaim:When The Language Glows

Writer Mansour Alsouwaim:When The Language Glows

KHARTOUM (Sudanow) — “When the Language Glows”, was the  title Critic Mamdooh Farraj Alnabi gave to a critiques he wrote about Mansour Alsouwaim’s novel ”Zakirat Shirreer” (Memory of a Wicked Person, 2005).

Souwaim has stormed the world of the marginalized; monitoring a stream of consciousness very close to the conditions in the bottom of the society where this category lives, said Nabi.

In the novel, that won the Tayeb Salih Award for Creative Writing in 2005, and which was translated into several languages, including French, Souwaim gives a remarkable narrative voice that transcends the marginalized to the ‘marginalizing’, adds Nabi.

Adds critic Nabi: Souwaim takes a sector of the society represented in the street kids and tramps in an address contrary to that loudly sounded by the government institutions (and their officials) about “the rights of the individual, the citizen”. 

It is from this miserable world that Souwaim slanders “the fossilized awareness” that lead the members of these categories to fall prey to charlatans and liars who disseminate panic and  illusion among the destitute and  the miserable to gain money, or even abuse them in search of  false ecstasy. Souwaim cites the triad of poverty, ignorance and sickness as a cause of these phenomena.

Some of Souwaim's novels

Novelist Souwaim was born in the Western Sudanese City of Nyala on 18 February 1970 and has graduated from the Faculty of Music and Theatre (Sudan University of Science and Technology).

As from 2000 he has been engaged in writing for the Sudanese press as a literary critic and as a general editor. He has also worked in the Saudi Arabian electronic press for over three years.

His novels have earned him a high position among Sudanese and Arab novelists, qualifying him for a lot of literary awards, including, in addition to Tayeb Salih Award for Creative Writing for his novel Memoy of a Wicked Person, the Afaq (horizons) award, presented by the Arab Fund For Culture for his novel "The Last of the Sultans” and the  Beirut39 Award for Writers under 39 for the entirety of his works, including his collections of short stories.

His first novel was entitled Tukhum Alramad (the Boundaries of Ashes). His second novel was Dhikriat Shirreer (Memoirs of A Wicked Person). 

The French translation of one of his short stories collections was entitled: Souvenirs d'un enfant des rues, 2012.

His other novels are Ashbah Faransawi (Ghosts of Mr. French,  2014), Arabat Almawta (The  Wagon of the Dead, 2016).

Writer Souwaim had participated in literary forums in Algeria, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. He has also participated in the International novel festival, Lyon, France.

He was also selected for the program “Resident Writer” - a grant from the Jummaira Hoetl to reside in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for a month.

Souwaim also participated in the workshop of the Booker Arab Novel Award in Abu Dhabi, 2009, an award devoted to Arabic fiction.

He also in 2012 served as arbiter in the Tayeb Salih Award for Creative Writing, organized annually in memory of the great international novelist.

Souwaim has documented the works of a group of Sudanese female writers, including Sara Hamza Aljack and Sabah Sanhoori.

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