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A review by nghia
Thirteen Months of Sunrise by Rania Mamoun
3.0
Rania Mamoun is, apparently, the first Sudanese woman to ever be translated into English. This is her second collection of short stories to appear in English. (I haven't read the first.) Short story collections are always a mixed bag. That's sort of the appeal: the short form allows more creativity but when you're not playing it safe not everything will turn out to be a success.
One big thing I look for in translated fiction is how well it conveys the feeling of a different place, a different culture, a different mindset. And Mamoun is pretty hit-or-miss in that regard. In the titular story, "Thirteen Months of Sunrise" about a brief friendship between a Sudanese girl and an Etritrean boy it comes through nicely.
But in many of the other stories the feeling of place is much fuzzier and less satisfying. "A Week of Love" is an example of a forgettable weaker work that could take place anywhere in the world and is somewhat trite to boot. I'm not sure the playful experimentation (one story is written in a screenplay-ish format) mixed with the usually fairly grim content (one story is about a diabetic beggar going into insulin shock) really worked for me, either.
One big thing I look for in translated fiction is how well it conveys the feeling of a different place, a different culture, a different mindset. And Mamoun is pretty hit-or-miss in that regard. In the titular story, "Thirteen Months of Sunrise" about a brief friendship between a Sudanese girl and an Etritrean boy it comes through nicely.
He mispronounced my name for the first few days, calling me ‘Raina’ instead of ‘Rania,’ half-swallowing the ‘R’, while I called him ‘Kidane’.
Back home, Kidane is a woman’s name, he told me, ‘Call me Kidana.’
‘For us, Kidana is a woman’s name,’ I told him, ‘because it ends in an “a”.’
But in many of the other stories the feeling of place is much fuzzier and less satisfying. "A Week of Love" is an example of a forgettable weaker work that could take place anywhere in the world and is somewhat trite to boot. I'm not sure the playful experimentation (one story is written in a screenplay-ish format) mixed with the usually fairly grim content (one story is about a diabetic beggar going into insulin shock) really worked for me, either.