There Is a Country
SynopsisPlot
Wrestling with a history marked by war and displacement, the work here presents a fresh and necessary account of an emerging nation, past and present. In vivid, gripping prose, There Is a Country's stories explore youth and love, life and death: a first glimpse of what South Sudanese literature has to offer.
Story
About this book
There Is a Country is an anthology of eight short works by South Sudanese writers, edited by Nyuol Lueth Tong. It stands as the first published collection of its kind from South Sudan, a nation that gained independence from Sudan in July 2011, making it the youngest internationally recognized country at the time of publication. The anthology draws on the experiences of writers shaped by decades of civil conflict and forced migration, subjects that run through much of the collection.
The stories cover a range of personal and collective ground. Some center on youth, family, and love; others address loss and the realities of life during and after prolonged war. Because the authors write from within or close to the events they describe, the pieces carry a directness that comes from proximity rather than outside observation. The collection addresses both the past and the present of a country whose written literary tradition in English remains small and difficult to access outside the region.
South Sudan's borders were formally drawn along the old provincial boundaries of British-era Sudan. The anthology's title echoes a quiet insistence on national existence, and the eight pieces together form an early public record of South Sudanese voices in published fiction and nonfiction.
