Sudanese history & culture are woven together in Stella Gaitano’s novel, ‘Edo’s Souls’

The novel won a PEN Translates award in 2020 and was translated from Arabic by Sawad Hussain.

Gaitano was born in Khartoum, to parents originally from southern Sudan, who had taken refuge in the city during Sudan’s civil war in the 1960s. She spoke her family’s Latuka language at home, Sudanese Arabic with her friends, and was educated in classical Arabic and later in English at university.

Her parents were illiterate, but they encouraged Gaitano and her siblings to go to school.