An estimated 50,000-70,000 Egyptian Nubians were displaced from forty-four villages along the Nile to the designated resettlement site known as ‘New Nubia’ (reference). This fact later led to the creation of Nubian literature as a form of ‘resistance narrative’ rewriting the history of the Aswan High Dam and Nubian displacement from a minority perspective (note) (see for more M: Minorities: Nubians).
- Idrīss ʿAlī (1940 – 2010, Egypt) – Dunqlā: Riwāyah Nūbiyyah (1993, English trans. A Novel of Nubia: Dongola, 1998) and Taht Khaṭṭ al-Faqr (2000, English trans. Poor, 2007) (both also in M: Minorities: Nubians).
Dunqlā focusses on a Nubian worker in the north of Egypt, ʿAwwād, who dreams of Dongola, the capital of the Nubian empire that once existed in Egypt, while he faces the reality of an impoverished Nubian community and forced migration of the Nubian people following the construction of the Aswan High Dam (reference). It describes ʿAwwād’s upbringing and the life of his family, particularly his wife and mother, whom he left in the south of Egypt (reference).
Taht Khat al-Faqr also describes the forced evacuation experience of Egyptian Nubians from their indigenous villages located south of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s and the newly independent state’s blatant disregard for their heritage (reference). It centers a Nubian character in Cairo, who has decided to end his life in the Nile river, the river that, through the dam, caused his exile and the loss of much of the Nubian cultural heritage.
- Ṣunʿallāh Ibrāhīm (1937 – 2025, Egypt) – Najmat Aghusṭus (‘August star’, 1974). This novel critically describes the construction of the Aswan Dam while using inflexible language and complex structure to reflect the construction. As a journalist visits the dam’s site, the novel depicts several conversations taking place around the dam: between workers, other journalists, western tourists, Russian experts, and local people (reference). What the journalist concludes is that while the dam is necessary for the development of Egypt, it disrupted the lives of others such as the many Nubians living in the area and its construction is surrounded by propaganda and censorship (reference) (also in L: Love, Lust and Relationships: Inter- religious and ethnic relationships: Between Arabs and Westerners).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Christine Gilmore. 2015. “A Minor Literature in a Major Voice: Narrating Nubian Identity in Contemporary Egypt.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 35: 52-74, p. 55
- Fatin Abbas. 2014. “Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and Nubian Diasporic Identity in Idris Ali’s ‘Dongola: A Novel of Nubia’.” Research in African Literatures 45(3): 147-166, p. 147
- Lisa Kaaki. 2006. “A Novel of Nubia.” www.arabnews.com, 30 November 2006, https://www.arabnews.com/node/291675 (last accessed 21 January 2024)
- Mary Youssef and Fawzy Yaram, 2015. “The Aesthetics of Difference: History and Representations of Otherness in ‘al-Nubi’ and ‘Wahat al-ghurub’.” AJCP 35: 75-99
- Hilary Kilpatrick. 1992. “The Egyptian novel from Zaynab to 1980.” In Modern Arabic Literature. eds. Muhammad Mustafa Badawi. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 223-270, p. 267
- Tasnim Qutait. “Sonallah Ibrahim: August Star.” www.arabhyphen.wordpress.com, 4 April 2013, https://arabhyphen.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/star-of-august/ (last accessed 3 November 2023)