Edo's Souls by Stella Gaitano, translated by Sawad Hussain

This book, for me, is a prime example that sometimes even when you've read 80% of the book, you might not be able to judge it appropriately until you read till the end. The judgement may sometimes change throughout a book and can be vastly different from chapter to chapter, pov to pov.

I read this for @translatedgemsbookclub 's August read. It starts out with introduction of Maria-Edo, a Sudanese woman from a small village in South Sudan, and her fierce love for her dead children, her relationship with God fraught with the complexities of the life she lived. It then turns to Edo's only surviving child, Lucy-Eghino, and her husband Marco. The couple, fearing the violence that will be brought upon the village soon, decide to run for their lives towards Juba, and then further to the North, Khartoum. From there, we get to experience their lives with Peter and Theresa, a couple who becomes a huge part of the story. The book deals heavily with themes of patriotism, religion, migration, indigenous peoples, motherhood, feminism and family. It is a multi-pov book, that attempts to give us a holistic view of some situations and fairly succeeds in it. The translation is pretty accessible. Stella's strength of short stories reflects in how she forms narrative. My only grouse is not being able to catch the character povs till the middle of a chapter but one gets used to it after a few chapters. It packs a heavy punch, there are some beautifully poetic descriptions of memories and nostalgia, longish commentaries on military shortcomings and revolutionary ideas, and paints a fairly granular picture of a country ravaged by intense divisive politics. 

Safe to say now I am intrigued to read more by Stella Gaitano and shall be looking forward to more of her works.