Sabah Sanhouri

Sabah Babiker Ibraheem Sanhouri was born on 18 December 1990, in Khartoum, Sudan.{{Cite web |title=Sabah Sanhouri |url=https://literaturfestival.com/en/authors/sabah-sanhouri/ |access-date=2023-05-08 |website=international literature festival berlin |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |date=2022-05-06 |title=Lit & Found: Three Short Stories by Sudanese Writer Sabah Sanhouri |url=https://arablit.org/2022/05/06/lit-found-three-short-stories-by-sudanese-writer-sabah-sanhouri/ |access-date=2023-05-08 |website=ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY |language=en-US}}

In 2009, her story Isolation won the Tayeb Salih Creative Writing Award for young writers and was published both in Arabic, as well as in a French and English translation. In his article on the topic of estrangement in modern Sudanese literature, translator and editor of The Book of Khartoum, Max Shmookler characterizes the story's "descriptions of the lone narrator and the desolate, dystopian town in which he finds himself" as "written in a tight, clipped prose, stripped of the poetic devices of meter, assonance, alliteration, and lexical coupling that give Arabic its particular aural appeal."{{Cite web |last=Shmookler |first=Max |title=Biting their Mother Tongue: Three Sudanese Short Stories about Estrangement |url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/biting-their-mother-tongue-three-sudanese-short-stories-about-estrangement |access-date=1 July 2020 |website=Words Without Borders}}

A film adaptation of her prize-winning short story Isolation was produced in Jordan by the film director Burhan Saadah in 2013.{{Cite web |title=Sabah Babiker Ibraheem Sanhouri |url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/contributor/sabah-babakir |access-date=6 July 2020 |website=Words Without Borders}} In 2015, Mirrors, her first collection of short stories, was published in Egypt, and in 2019, she published her first novel, entitled Paradise, in Khartoum.{{Cite web |last=Codingest |date=20 June 2020 |title=العدميّـــة وغُبن المكــــــــان . |url=http://clicktopress.com/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D8%A9-%D9%88%D8%BA%D8%A8%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%83%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D8%A7%D9%86 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220818114023/http://clicktopress.com/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D8%A9-%D9%88%D8%BA%D8%A8%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%83%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D9%80%D8%A7%D9%86 |archive-date=2022-08-18 |access-date=28 June 2020 |website=كليك برس السودان}} In a review in Arabic, the cultural Internet magazine {{Transliteration|ar|Geel gadeed}} characterized this novel like this: "Reading Sabah Sanhouri’s works; for me, is a risky journey, like entering an abandoned children's park in a city where a nuclear reactor has exploded. You might get cancer from radiation-contaminated minerals, and a hungry snake might pounce on your leg. And the journey of reading becomes even more dangerous, since the author belongs to your generation."{{Cite web |date=13 January 2020 |title=رواية 'بارادايس' ثيمة الرعب والموت |url=http://geelgadeed.net/%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d8%ab%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%b9%d8%a8-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%88%d8%aa/ |access-date=15 July 2020 |website=جيل جديد |language=ar}}

In 2022, her novel Paradise was published in German{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=July 2022 |title=Sabah Sanhouri: Paradise |url=https://www.schiler-muecke.de/index.php?title=Sabah+Sanhouri:+Paradise&art_no=B0440 |access-date=2022-07-30 |website=www.schiler-muecke.de |language=de}} in an edition curated by Rafik Schami, one of Germany's most widely read writers.{{cite book |last=Dunphy |first=Graeme |title=Encyclopedia of German Literature |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers |year=2000 |isbn=1-57958-138-2 |editor=Konzett, Matthias |location=Chicago |pages=849–851 |chapter=Rafik Schami |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5uE4CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA850}} Centered around the fictitious suicide agency ›Paradise‹, an author called Salam tries to do justice to her job by writing suicide scenarios tailored to the agency's customers. The story's almost endless string of suicides has been interpreted as the search for the meaning of life, and fellow Sudanese writer Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin wrote about it: “I couldn't tear myself away from the strange world of Paradise, with its characters standing on the brink of death as they slide of their own free will into a dark abyss, into a hell that their minds imagine to be heaven, sold to them by an agency as an illusion of eternal salvation."

Sanhouri writes in Arabic, and several of her stories have been translated into French, English, German, and Italian. She is also a freelance journalist and a member of the Geneva Writers Group.

Apart from her work as writer of essays, poetry and fiction, Sanhouri has been active as a mentor for young Sudanese writers, by conducting several workshops called #OneDayFiction in various cities of Sudan. The participants' age ranged from 18 to 28 years, and included young people with disabilities and youth in prisons. Among others, these workshops were sponsored by the cultural section of the Embassy of Italy in Sudan as well as by the German cultural centre Goethe-Institut in Khartoum.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=#OneDayFiction|url=http://www.sabahsanhouri.com/419609859|access-date=28 June 2020|website=Sabah Sanhouri|language=en-US}} In 2014, she was invited to the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.{{Cite web|title=Sabah Sanhouri {{!}} The International Writing Program|url=https://iwp.uiowa.edu/writers/sabah-sanhouri|access-date=28 June 2020|website=iwp.uiowa.edu}} She is a member of the Sudanese Writers Union, a jury member of the University of Khartoum Short Story Contest, and gave a TEDx Talk about her approach to writing in 2018.{{Citation|last=Sanhouri|first=Sabah|title=pursuit Fiction|url=https://www.ted.com/talks/sabah_sanhouri_pursuit_fiction|language=en|access-date=2021-02-11}}

In September 2016, she participated in the International Festival of Literature in Berlin and in 2020 in the Festival of African Literature Crossing Borders in Cologne, Germany.{{Cite web|title=Crossing Borders – stimmen afrikas|url=http://www.crossingborders-stimmenafrikas.de/en/stimmen-afrikas|access-date=28 June 2020|website=CROSSING BORDERS: translate – transpose – communicate|language=de}} For September 11, 2022, the International Literature Festival Berlin announced her participation again, this time together with the writer Stella Gaitano from South Sudan.{{Cite web |title=Contemporary Arabic Literature – Writing the Two Sudans. Sabah Sanhouri: Paradise / Stella Gaitano: The Return |url=https://literaturfestival.com/en/events/writing-the-two-sudans-sabah-sanhouri-paradise-stella-gaitano-the-return-2/ |access-date=2022-08-18 |website=international literature festival berlin |language=en-US}}

• Isolation (2009). Short story in Arabic and English, published on online magazine Words without Borders{{Cite web|last=Sanhouri|first=Sabah Babiker Ibraheem|title=Isolation|url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/isolation|access-date=1 July 2020|website=Words Without Borders}} and in the French anthology Nouvelles du Soudan{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Nouvelles du Soudan|url=https://www.editions-magellan.com/livres/nouvelles-du-soudan/|access-date=29 June 2020|website=www.editions-magellan.com|pages=41–49}}
• Mirrors. Collection of short stories (2015). Merit Publishing House, Cairo, Egypt
• Paradise. Novel (2019). Almosawarat Publishing, Khartoum{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=13 January 2020|title=The Novel Paradise: Its theme is horror and deathرواية 'بارادايس' ثيمة الرعب والموت|url=http://geelgadeed.net/%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d8%ab%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%b9%d8%a8-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%88%d8%aa/|access-date=28 June 2020|website=(Jeel Jadid, Arabic cultural magazine) جيل جديد|language=ar}}{{Line break}}German edition: Paradise. Schiler & Mücke Publishers, Berlin. ISBN 9783899304404

• Sudanese literature
• List of Sudanese writers

{{Reflist}}

• Al-Malik, A., Gaetano, S., Adam, H., Baraka, S. A., Karamallah, A., Mamoun, R., & Luffin, X. (2009). Nouvelles du Soudan. Paris: Magellan & Cie. (in French) {{ISBN|9782350741604|}}
• Cormack, Raph and Shmookler, Max (eds.) (2016) [https://commapress.co.uk/books/the-book-of-khartoum/ The Book of Khartoum. A City in Short Fiction.] {{ISBN|9781905583720|}}

{{Commons}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAHk0IkBSjc Video by Burhan Saadah], based on Sanhouri's short story [https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/isolation Isolation] on YouTube
• [https://arablit.org/2022/05/06/lit-found-three-short-stories-by-sudanese-writer-sabah-sanhouri/ Short article with links about Sabah Sanhouri's works] on arablit.org
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nItOChr_Jhg Video portrait of Sabah Sanhouri by Institut français Khartoum] on YouTube (Arabic with French subtitles)

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Category:1990 births

Category:Sudanese novelists

Category:Sudanese poets

Category:Sudanese women short story writers

Category:Sudanese short story writers

Category:Sudanese women poets

Category:Sudanese women novelists

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century Sudanese writers

Category:21st-century women writers

Category:Sudanese women writers