River Spirit

English language

Published Dec. 31, 2022 by Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated.

ISBN:
978-0-8021-6066-9
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5 stars (1 review)

1890s Sudan. When Akuany and her brother are orphaned in a village raid, they are taken in by a young merchant, Yaseen, who promises to care for them – a vow that tethers him to Akuany throughout their adulthood. As revolution begins to brew, led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Sudan begins to prise itself from Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side.

Yaseen feels beholden to stand against this false Mahdi, a decision that threatens to splinter his family. Meanwhile, Akuany is moved across the country alone, sold and traded from house to house, with only Yaseen as her intermittent lifeline. Their struggle mirrors the increasingly bloody struggle for Sudan itself: for freedom, safety and the possibility of love.

River Spirit is the unforgettable story of a people who, against the odds and for a brief time, gained independence from foreign rule through their willpower, subterfuge and sacrifice.

1 edition

Luminous, evocative, poetic storytelling

5 stars

This is a piece of historical fiction that takes us to Sudan, during the 1880s, the end of the Ottoman empire. There are several main characters, but the one whose arc unites them all is a spirited young woman who loves the river as if it is her own mother. Her journey from the lush highlands, through the desert, to the cities of Sudan (mainly Al-Ubeid and Khartoum) introduces us to a young merchant turned Islamic scholar, a lout turned soldier, a mother-in-law who keeps her penchant for trading a secret, a widowed Scottish painter who wishes only to return to his daughter, and historical figures such as British Generals and a Muhammad Ahmed ibn Abdullah, a self-styled messianic prophet and leader of the uprising against Egyptian rule. Throughout, the experiences and voices of women in war, women in a patriarchal society, are centered and uplifted.

Listening to the audiobook …