Ireme

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About the book

Set against Sudan’s history of civil wars, Ireme explores identity, family, and the unresolved past of a fractured nation. Ireme, the protagonist, is the daughter of a Southern mother and a Northern father, born in the South but raised far from her father’s roots. After her father’s death, she travels to Khartoum to find her family and understand herself. 

Ireme offers a rare glimpse into the social and psychological impacts of Sudan’s civil war. The novel confronts the harsh realities of the country’s past while offering fragile hope through characters who seek the truth. Themes of alienation, belonging, and reconciliation are central to the story.

What our readers say 

In her gripping second novel, Ireme, acclaimed South Sudanese author, Stella Gaitano, explores the profound effects of Sudan’s civil war on ordinary lives. Najlaa Eltom and Mayada Ibrahim’s graceful and sensitive translation captures the engaging style, emotional resonance and vivid imagery of the original Arabic text. 

What our panellists say 

Stella Gaitano’s Ireme is the second volume in a vibrant multi-generational epic set against the conflicts and tensions between north and south Sudan, a landscape to which English-language readers are rarely exposed. Mayada Ibrahim and Najlaa Eltom’s translation from Arabic into English lights up Gaitano’s subtle exploration of love, quarrels and family secrets without ever getting in the reader’s way. Of all the submissions we read, this was one of the most important. 

–Fiammetta Rocco

Rights available

World English  

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Translation extract

From Ireme 

 

Stella Gaitano 

 translated by Mayada Ibrahim and Najlaa Eltom 

 

Five girls, each with a distinct appearance, circled round a rust-covered water barrel. It stood a meter high, maybe slightly less, but the girls were taller, and they could easily peer into it when standing on tiptoes, their hands reaching in as they toyed with the water and the floating objects. 

The water rose to three quarters of the barrel’s height. Yellowing neem leaves that had fallen from the branches above swam on the surface, and twigs from the arak tree drifted aimlessly like lost boats, stirred by the hands of the girls. The father had tossed these twigs into the barrel so they could soften enough to be chewed as miswak brushes. 

Imota’s real name was Edo. Her mother had given her the name Imota, meaning ‘little one,’ because of her tiny stature when she was an infant, and everyone had taken to calling her it. 

She and her sister, who is older by a year, went to join the three girls from the neighbourhood beneath the large tree to play a game they made up using arak twigs. The game was simple: you hurl a stick with all your might into the bottom of the barrel, then watch it shoot back up through the water, launching out beyond the rim like a rocket. Little Imota, the most animated of the girls, climbed onto an empty container to boost her height, so she could stand on the edge of the barrel and fling her stick and watch it soar, again and again. As she leaned over the barrel, oblivious to the shifting container beneath her, her balance faltered and she struggled to regain her footing. The container slipped away, skidding far off, and Imota plunged into the barrel, half her body sinking into the water, her legs kicking wildly in the air, pleading for rescue. 

Soon Imota could no longer hear anything; her ears filled with water. Her eyes widened before the murky depths. She swallowed and tasted a metallic tang. Her nostrils burned, as though a hot wire had been pushed into them. She held her breath and struck the bottom of the barrel, trying to push herself up. But the slick algae coating the barrel’s insides made it too slippery. Her attempts were futile. 

She felt the air draining from her chest, her movements growing weaker, then lighter, like a leaf, even lighter. She felt ethereal, drifting without a shred of willpower. The rusty edges of the barrel began to blur, and she found herself facing vast expanses of water, an infinite sea. Her mind fixated on a single thought: air. She opened her mouth wider, surrendering more and more to the water. 

As she glanced at the void, she thought she glimpsed an eye far below. A black, shiny pupil, like a tunnel leading somewhere unknown. Something was drawing her to the depths, toward the centre of the eye, and she offered no resistance, gliding into a deep underground passage, like a river-dwelling creature, the pressure that had threatened to burst her lungs dissolving. She found she could breathe with ease, though she couldn’t tell if it was air filling her or water. The metallic taste disappeared; the pain faded. A jelly-like substance enveloped her, freezing her limbs, melding with her, guiding her gently with the flow of its slow meandering current. She kept a tight grip on the arak twig as the current carried her into the earth-bound tunnel. She didn’t resist, entering as if in a state of rebirth, heading towards a new world. There was a majestic silence and everything moved in a sluggish, dreamlike manner. A strange, inexplicable joy overwhelmed her. The world she had drowned out of faded away. Faces disappeared, one by one, like bubbles bursting: her mother, her father, all her sisters, all her friends. Finally, her own face. She succumbed to a blissful quiet. 

A powerful tug pulled her upwards, reversing her descent. Pain surged through her as if her body were being torn apart. A sturdy hand grasped her feet and smacked her on the back like doctors do with newborns. She was still clutching the arak twig tightly, her face as peaceful as the dead’s. A moment later, the sound of wailing pierced her ears, and a flood of questions about what had happened. 

‘She fell into the water barrel!’ 

When she opened her eyes, she saw a man bent over her. Someone unfamiliar. He had a broad frame, tawny skin, and was wearing a faded white jalabiya that had seen better days. His hair was intricately braided. At a quick glance, he might have seemed a little mad, murmuring to himself. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, only seeing his lips moving. His eyes, though beautiful, had an eeriness to them, like the eye she had seen beneath the water. 

Fate had it that the man was passing by the house whose door, like most, was left ajar. He heard the girls screaming and, glancing inside, noticed two small feet sticking out from the barrel. He rushed in, pulled her out, and attempted to revive her. She coughed, trying to clear her lungs of water, as her mother Lucy collapsed on the ground, surrounded by the neighbours who had hurried over when they’d heard the commotion. When she finally came to, Imota was greeted with embraces from everyone except Lucy. Lucy remained paralyzed on the ground. Only when others reassured her that her daughter was alive did she lash out, striking Imota and pouring all her stifled terror onto the girl’s fragile body. 

Finally relieved, Imota lay on her bed, having changed out of her wet clothes into dry ones. But sleep eluded her. The eye, the tunnel that had tugged at her, was still sharp in her mind. Her brothers and sisters lay nearby, utterly drained, their minds swirling with fear of death, the death that had almost claimed one of them. 

Imota wasn’t the youngest of Lucy’s daughters, but she was the most childlike. She was older than two of her sisters, but both had outpaced her physically and mentally. Time had halted for her in some otherworldly space, leaving her slight, with a mind and temperament that never matured past the age of five or six. Her imagination was boundless; she talked to imaginary figures, wove intricate stories while awake and asleep. 

These tales were so vivid that anyone hearing them for the first time wouldn’t suspect they were made up. In the family, Imota was also known as ‘the truthful liar.’ She had a sharp memory, recalling events no one would expect her to have taken note of. She remembered all kinds of figures and dates, and uncovered lost items after everyone had given up searching for them. Sometimes, she would go into silent spells that lasted days, during which she would only eat dirt and drink water. Once these spells ended, she would transform into a cheerful child, her face brightening with a broad, open smile. She had contracted every serious childhood illness – viruses, bacteria, worms – but miraculously survived them all. These ailments stunted her growth and gave her hair a reddish tint, which her parents blamed on malnutrition. Her behaviour was often odd; she would foresee and interpret events like an elderly grandmother. 

For days, she deliriously spoke of the eye that resembled a tunnel, clinging to the bedspread so tightly that her body would seize up in spasms, resisting its pull. Sometimes she would hold her breath, reliving the moments of drowning in the barrel. Everyone else had moved on from the incident, but not Imota. She remained trapped in it while the family’s lives carried on: Lucy bustled around the house, her belly and breasts sagging from having carried and nursed more than fourteen children, including multiple twins. The house was filled with their laughter, their quarrels, their clothes, their shoes. 

As each child had grown older, they had been assigned duties to help care for their younger siblings. Marco, the father, worked tirelessly to feed all those hungry mouths, provide an education for all those young minds, and to safeguard them all from the sudden, treacherous childhood illnesses that could strike without warning. The strain showed on him: he had lost much of his weight, and his once-thick hair had receded, leaving bald patches on the sides of his head. Thin as he was, and bent under all those responsibilities, he carried a strength that wouldn’t break. His eyes had a faint white haze, dulling the brightness of his youth, but he remained as nurturing as a mother – disciplining the teenagers, keeping the youngest clean, tutoring the ones struggling at school. 

Despite the heavy burdens they carried, the family held together, keeping their joy alive. They laughed loudly, feared for one another’s safety, ended their arguments in tears, and slept peacefully after gathering in the evenings around the television that stood at the heart of their large courtyard. Sometimes they would fall asleep while the television stayed on, only stirring when the broadcast ended and the screen filled with the colourful stripes of a test pattern. Eventually, someone would wake up to use the bathroom and switch it off. 

Lucy gave birth to a child every year with a near-religious regularity nothing short of astonishing. Her bouts of longing for her distant village in the far south – a land now consumed by the fires of war – had lessened over time. She had named her children after everyone and everything she cherished in that village: people, objects, memories. What drove it might have been the fear of forgetting. Each time she called out the name of one of her children it flung her back to the village, conjuring images of her mothers and sisters, the drums, the graves, the market, the church, the river, the dance square. 

Lucy spoke to her children in her mother tongue. She told them stories about her family and their father’s family. She explained that she and their father were alone in this world, so it was her mission to bring new siblings and kin into existence, and therefore they had no right to complain about their numbers. The new children were the souls of the offspring of Lucy’s mother who died too soon. The mother, Edo, had endured the mysterious, repeated death of her children and the grief had driven her to madness. One scorching afternoon, she decided to seek answers from God. She wanted to know why He had taken her ten children. She lay down and closed her eyes, with her hands crossed over her heart, and never rose again. Her friends, who were there at her side, were left in stunned silence, staring at her cold face, now marked by a frozen, mocking smile. 

Lucy often said she was a gateway for these souls, fulfilling a covenant made in the heavens between her mother and God. Marco would listen and nod in agreement, a weary smile crossing his face as the grey hairs steadily claimed his brow. He wondered: Were they still fulfilling the prophecy of an old woman driven mad by grief? In his heart, he knew he was trapped in a situation from which there was no escape save for surrendering to its current with a mixture of patience and skill. He busied himself with managing the lives of fourteen children – infants to teenagers, each with their own moods and desires.

Marco hadn’t heard from his lifelong friend Peter in over two years. The war in the south had spiralled rapidly, with daily news of death and destruction and displacement, and no signs of improvement. Marco felt in every pore a powerful urge to flee to some distant place, but he knew he couldn’t leave Lucy alone with a tribe of children. He had to get a hold on his anger over the war, and the revolution on which he had once pinned such high hopes, a revolution that now seemed to be leading only to greater chaos. He had no choice but to stay.

And little Imota preoccupied him. She danced with death with unsettling grace and always seemed to walk away unscathed. She lived in a parallel world, her consciousness barely tethered to this one. Though she struggled with learning, Marco occasionally glimpsed flashes of intelligence in her. She drifted through life guided by the invisible current of her imagination. But did these behaviours herald something sinister? Would they worsen as she grew older? And what kind of future awaited her? 

A few days after the incident, Imota quietly slipped out of bed, her steps so soft she glided above the ground with her shadow trailing behind. Her dress, patterned with white flowers, swallowed her up. The hand-me-down, outgrown by a sister, dragged across the ground as she walked through the house. Imota always claimed these castoffs, inheriting anything that had become too tight or too short for her siblings. She nestled into her father’s lap, clutching the strap of his white cotton undershirt, and began telling him about the eye. Her fingers spread wide as she tried to show him how large it had been. She stared intently at her outstretched hands, looking for the right words. Finally, she said the eye was like a well that led somewhere deep underground, and something inside it had invited her to follow it. 

Marco held her close and gently whispered, ‘Were you scared?’ 

She shook her head. ‘I can breathe under water.’

Her tone was so calm that Marco felt momentarily relieved. There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were reliving a blissful memory. 

‘Imota,’ he said. No one can breathe normally underwater. When someone drowns, it’s because they can’t breathe.’

‘No, I won’t die. I was breathing and seeing just fine underwater.’

‘No, that’s not true,’ he said more sternly, slightly astounded.

But Imota, undeterred, looked up at him and repeated, ‘Papa, I told you, I was breathing under the water, like this.’ She inhaled and exhaled forcefully, with playful defiance.

Marco stood up and pulled her into his arms, sitting her directly in front of him, trying to regain control of the conversation. ‘Listen, Imota, maybe you’re telling the truth as you see it, but we can’t understand what you’re saying. Everyone knows that if you fall into the water, you drown and die. So you have to promise me you won’t go near that barrel again.’

Imota nodded, her head bowed. ‘Okay,’ she said.

Father and daughter spoke in hushed voices like two sentries on watch amid the large family sprawled across the courtyard where children and guests alike slept peacefully. Each adult had their own bed while the younger ones shared, two to a bed, legs entwined, arms spilling over the edges. Lucy lay with two of the children beside her as if in a temporary camp of weary soldiers. 

Marco carried his daughter to her bed beside one of her sisters. He tickled her under her arm and beneath her chin, drawing out soft, muffled giggles as she pressed her hands over her mouth, her spirits lifting. Leaning in close he whispered in her ear, ‘Sometimes, we need to set our madness aside, for the sake of those who love us.’ 

Imota nodded, her eyes sparkling in the dark, reflecting the light of the full moon that shone brightly that night. ‘I won’t go to that place again, Papa. So you won’t be hurt,’ she said. He kissed her forehead in gratitude, and she added excitedly, ‘I have a story that’s been on my mind.’ 

‘Tell it in a low voice. So you don’t wake your siblings. I’ll listen from over there, like before. Deal?’ 

She nodded. He tickled her one last time before returning to his bed.  

From across the room, he listened to her whispering to herself. Whenever her voice grew too loud, one of her siblings would snap, ‘Imota, be quiet!’ She would pause, covering her mouth with both hands as if trying to contain the vapour of her story from escaping. Once she was sure everyone was still, she resumed her whispering, until sleep finally claimed her.

Marco was familiar with the bouts of insomnia that had often troubled Imota, especially when the moon was full. Her mind would become unusually sharp and active, and he would stay awake to keep watch over her. He knew she might wander through the courtyard, lost in her thoughts. He stayed up pondering how to keep his wild-hearted daughter safe; Imota follows wherever her mind leads her, and one day she might pay the price. Marco feared he would find her truly drowned in the barrel. Or, worse, that she would vanish into some hidden place within the earth. 

The next day, the barrel had been tipped over and was lying upside down. Marco brought home a small, tightly sealed water tank, elevated on legs. He fitted it with a spout, knowing that while they couldn’t do without a water container, precautions were necessary to prepare for days when the water supply was cut off. But there was another concern. Imota had a habit of following behind anyone who had left the house. More than once, someone had noticed her tagging along after they’d walked a considerable distance, having to turn round and bring her home. Hours were often lost searching for her after these incidents, Lucy drowning in panic until Imota was finally found. 

This habit had led Imota to stumble upon secrets. Once, she silently followed their neighbour to her home. The woman, oblivious to her shadow, entered the house and left the door ajar behind her, circling around the house and walking into a secluded room at the end of a narrow alleyway, Imota still on her trail. The woman then took a key that hung from a chain around her neck, unlocked the door, and entered, calling out, ‘Bakuri, I’m here.’ 

Imota followed closely, pressing herself against the wall. The room was dimly lit, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she could make out what was happening. She saw the neighbour gently tending to a figure lying on the bed, its body still except for its hands, which moved erratically, and its eyes, wide and fixed on the ceiling. Strange, infant-like sounds escaped their mouth, and front teeth, large and spaced apart. The woman carefully turned the figure from side to side, then began to remove its damp clothes, which had soaked the sheets beneath. She did all of this tenderly, mimicking and harmonising the strange sounds the figure made. 

Imota watched everything with the stillness of a fly caught in a spider’s web, unable to tear her eyes away from the large child with thick hair and a long, unwieldy body. When the neighbour finished her task and turned to leave, she was startled to find Imota there in the room with them. Her scream snapped Imota out of her trance, and without uttering a word Imota bolted, fleeing as fast as her legs could carry her. 

The woman, terrified that her secret might be exposed, quickly spread a rumor in the neighbourhood that Lucy’s daughter was weird, a liar who spoke of things that made no sense. And many believed her, Imota’s peculiar nature already well known. But the neighbour didn’t stop there. Every time she saw Imota she would glare at her, warning her to keep silent about the son she was hiding away – a disabled boy who had grown up alone in that dark room, far from prying eyes. 

* 

The family was startled one morning by a knock at the door. Didi, Marco’s eldest son – whose real name was Daniel – answered. A woman, maybe in her mid-thirties stood there, tall and with light brown skin and striking features. Her full lips curved into a warm smile; something turbulent flickered in her long-lashed eyes. Her black hair fell carelessly and her figure carried a slight fullness. 

To Daniel, it seemed that she was wearing more clothes than necessary, layers that seemed excessive for someone her age. She wore a jacket and baggy jeans, with a half-unbuttoned shirt revealing a striped undershirt straining to contain her ample chest, two restless cats trapped inside a sack. Her laced leather shoes gave her the appearance of a mountain-climber. She dragged a large suitcase behind her and a well-crafted leather bag hung from her back. In her hand, she held a piece of paper, hastily torn from a school notebook, its edges jagged. On it was a hand-sketched map, marked with large, bold English letters and a detailed drawing of a house with its door and windows opening onto a square. Ink was applied heavily in the shape of the canopy of a large shaded tree. Whoever drew the map knew this house intimately. 

Daniel thought she resembled someone he knew, though he couldn’t quite place who it was. He studied her for a few seconds, considering the possibility that she might be lost and looking for another house in the neighbourhood. He was about to ask what she wanted when she spoke, her words shaped by the distinct Arabic of the south: 

‘Dis… dis Peter Samuel’s house? Marco? Marco is here?’ She extended the paper she was holding with trembling fingers. Daniel couldn’t hide his surprise at how her accent contrasted with her appearance. 

‘Yes… please come in.’ 

He stepped aside to let her enter and carried her heavy suitcase inside. She moved cautiously, her eyes scanning the family one by one as they emerged from the rooms, the shed, the kitchen, and beneath the large tree, their forms reminiscent of humanity rising on Judgment Day. The sounds of conversation retreated slowly until silence reigned. 

Marco welcomed her with a handshake. She extended her hand to meet his: ‘You… you Marco? Peter’s fren?’ 

‘Yes. I’m Marco, Peter’s friend,’ he replied tensely. 

‘My name Salam Abdulsalam Muhammad Abdulsalam, but in my tribe, Ireme, dey call me Salam. I am Peter’s sister. Mother one.’ A flicker of astonishment crossed Marco’s face. Salam ignored it and continued speaking. She told him that she had heard much about him from her mother. After a pause, she added that she had come to find her family. 

He invited her into the sitting room. She thanked him with a broad smile, her eyes wandering round the room. She walked cautiously, stepping over the threshold with her heavy boots. Without waiting for permission, she collapsed onto the nearest chair and sighed deeply. 

Marco sifted through his memory, his eyes fixed on her, desperately trying to recall whether Peter had ever mentioned this supposed sister. If his friend had brought up something like this, there’s no way he would have forgotten. What could be behind this girl’s sudden appearance? Was her existence a secret even Peter didn’t know? And what about the rest of the family? Did they know? 

The news spread quickly through the house. Salam kept noticing shadows crisscrossing the courtyard, pairs of eyes darting here and there, stealing glances through the windows with curious movements that almost made her laugh. Lucy brought in a glass of red juice, incessantly repeating words of welcome, curiosity plain on her face despite her attempts to cover it. 

‘You Lucy, right?’ 

‘Yes, that’s me! But you – where have you been all these years?’ 

Marco shot her a sharp look. An awkward silence filled the room. Salam drank a glass of water in large gulps then began sipping her juice more calmly. After a moment, she reached into her backpack and pulled out three photographs, handing the first to Marco. 

‘I’m five year old, with my father and mother. We live in village between Sudan and Uganda. The people there – they don’t care about borders. The land, the language, the traditions – they keep them together, here and there. They don’t care about maps.’ 

Marco studied the photograph: Abdulsalam was clad in a socialist-style suit, a simple utilitarian Safari suit, a style popularised as a modest alternative to more traditional or Western attire. A child with a shaved head, like a widow in mourning, sat on Abdulsalam’s lap. But the child seemed joyful. Beside him was a woman in her forties, smiling, her eyes fixed lovingly on the child, the child’s arms hanging over her father’s wrists in a playful, swaying pose. She wore white trousers and a blouse that appeared to be homemade, woven with various colours of crochet. On her feet were light sandals that gently held her small feet. 

The second photo showed Abdulsalam and his four daughters, with Peter and his wife Teresa, who bore deep tribal scars on her cheeks, standing in the middle. This time, Abdulsalam was dressed in a traditional jalabiya and a majestic turban wrapped around his head. Beside him sat his wife Fawzia, draped in a tobe decorated with patterns of bridges. The daughters had matching hairstyles, parted in the middle and tied into two equal sections with white ribbons shaped like large butterflies resting on flowers. They wore short dresses with long socks that disappeared beneath the hems. The age difference between them was evident – two to three years. Peter stood in the background with a shy expression, hiding his nervousness behind a foolish smile and eyes that seemed ready to leap out of the photograph.

Marco let his mind wander. Abdulsalam. He had to be incredibly cunning to live two separate lives at once – two families, two geographies, two chronologies, all running parallel with uncanny calculations and secrecy. But now it seemed the time had come for these two worlds to collide, and Marco dreaded the potential for wreckage. 

The third photograph was a half-portrait of Peter dressed in his military uniform. It was a smaller version of the one still hanging in Marco and Lucy’s room. Marco recalled how Peter’s wife Teresa would hold that photo in her hands, gazing at it whenever Peter was away for long periods, especially during the times when orders were issued to counter one of the government’s coup attempts. He handed the photograph to Lucy before her curiosity could consume her. A laugh burst from her as she saw Peter in his younger days, with a slim, youthful build. The photo was tinged with the reddish hue of a setting sun. Marco’s mind continued to race, filled with restless thoughts about how the news of Salam’s arrival would impact Abdulsalam’s family. How would his daughter Jalaa and her husband Hassan react? 

For years, Marco had maintained a good relationship with Jalaa and her family. He visited them occasionally, asking for any news about Peter that would trickle in through sporadic letters. Jalaa would show him photographs of Peter’s children, sometimes bundled up in coats, sometimes swimming in vast deep-blue seas. She also developed a special bond with Marco’s older children. With their hands clasped in hers, she took them to large demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the regime, and brought them back a short while later, excited, chanting revolutionary slogans. When she noticed the children’s interest in reading, she transformed Peter’s operations room into a small library. He had been forced to flee and join the rebellion after being pursued by the intelligence services, accused of betraying the nation and supporting the rebels, exploiting his leadership position in the army; a charge brought against him through the denunciation of his cousin, Ismail. 

Marco shrugged off his thoughts. What’s the use of dwelling on these memories now? Jalaa will undoubtedly know what to do. She always knew how to navigate a crisis. He trusted her. He would go to her and explain what he knew.

Having settled on his course, he inhaled deeply and turned to Salam. ‘Welcome,’ he repeated warmly.