An Excerpt from ‘Edo’s Souls,’ Multigenerational Epic of South & North Sudan

Stella Gaitano’s debut novel, Edo’s Souls, is a multigenerational epic set between Sudan and South Sudan that stages a battle between the forces of Motherhood and Death. In this excerpt of the novel, translated to English by Sawad Hussain and published by Dedalus Books, Lucy (Edo’s daughter) reflects on a time when she was briefly infertile, when war came and “women’s wombs closed up.”

I know why I was struck with infertility — it was a time where we would hear gunfire everywhere, and see bullets whizzing back and forth like shooting stars. I say this as dread settles over me; I remember when the war started in my village and women’s wombs closed up, how for several seasons not a single cry of a newborn could be heard. Mama Ilaygha would say that the war petrified the babies into hiding right in the depths of their mothers, their ears listening attentively for when the conflict would end. And I believe her.

The fear that held me hostage that day wasn’t for myself, but rather for my loved ones, that they might be hurt. If I were alone, I could await my fate with the courage of a she-goat who finds herself in the jaws of a crocodile. She who faces death with dignity, not making herself some kind of easily chewed prey. But it occurred to me that things could get worse, and that we’d be forced to flee this city — what would we do? I have so many children, at least three who need someone to carry them, while the others need someone to lead them by the hand — it would be an extremely difficult situation. Which is exactly why so many women in my village refused to flee, afraid their children would die or get lost along the way. Their little yet piercing screams would alert the enemy to our hiding places. Those on the run never want women who have newborns on their backs, so a woman is forced to run away on her own, or be far away enough that people can’t tell her children off.

The fear I feel takes me back to that forest, to the moment that mother was killed with her baby still in her arms, him crying alone in the darkness. The enormous trees had leaned over him like beasts, their leaves peering at him, until I went to him almost hypnotised. His mother had taken him with her in the hope of crossing into drier expanses of land, only dotted with a few trees, in the North of the country.

I faint every time the sound of gunfire increases, every time my ears pick up on those being hunted in the alleys next to Theresa and Peter’s house. When the soldiers started to storm houses and raid them, their rifles waving, I’d tremble so hard that my teeth would chatter, and I’d go limp. What if they decided to kill us? Marco warned me that my behaviour made others suspect we were hiding someone. The soldiers would step it up once inside the house, turning more and more things over until Theresa addressed them and informed them that this was the home of their fellow soldier, Peter Solomon. They would then apologise, kindly, their steps retreating to where they came from.

It was difficult for me to get a handle on my panic attacks. My fear stemmed from the thought that I would lose one of them, and also for another reason, which I would whisper knelt on the confessional pew to the father in church.

I told him, my voice choked with emotion, tears streaming down my face, ‘One day, at dawn, I covered for a soldier who attacked the city. I found him hiding in the branches of our thick tree, but I didn’t scream or tell anyone where he was hiding. Yes, father, I know I have sinned, I have made a mistake, but I also feel relieved about it at the same time because how can I, father, be the cause of someone’s death, even if they are our enemy?’ In that moment, that soldier wasn’t an enemy, he was just an injured, scared man.

‘I feel that I have sinned but I feel at the same time that I made the right kind of mistake, as long as nobody was killed.’

The father made the sign of the cross in the air and said that God had forgiven me. I thanked the father, my face beaming.

On that night I’ll never forget, when the sounds of gunshots filled the air and the city was thrust into darkness, when we had to crawl to relieve our bowels so that no bullet would pierce us between the eyes, my stomach felt extremely unsettled. Whenever there was a shootout, my stomach would tighten and I’d soon feel the undeniable need to push out whatever was in there. Our open-air latrine was in the hosh, in one of the corners of the compound, right next to the street outside, shielded by the branches of the tree overhead.

I crawled that night towards it, the shadow of the tree somehow longer in the darkness. When I got close to the toilet, I slowly stood upright after ensuring I was safe for the time being from any stray bullets. I thought I heard someone breathing hard, trying to stifle a cry of pain, and before I could confirm where the sound was coming from, a sticky and warm lump fell right on the crown of my head, like the blessed saliva of my grandmothers, thickened with their tobacco.

I stared into the darkness, my eyes wandering slowly from branch to branch. I was finding it hard to breathe, my throat dry as if I had swallowed a handful of flour. There was a body stretched out along the branch, a black mass without any features, just the eyes, open eerily wide, begging me. My heart was a beating drum, only to then feel like it was being pulled apart by flames of fire. Our eyes locked in the darkness, fear meeting fear, despair greeting despair, last hopes upon last hopes. We spoke without opening our mouths. I broke the silence, ‘Don’t kill me, I’ve got children and I want more.’

And I think he said, ‘Don’t scream and I won’t have to.’

I walked with my back as straight as possible, trying to keep my balance, so that I wouldn’t spill his clot of blood on the ground. I straightened my neck as well. Might as well be balancing a pitcher of water from the river.

Stella Gaitano was born in Khartoum in 1979 into a South Sudanese family. She studied English and Arabic at Khartoum University and trained as a pharmacist. When the Sudan was partitioned, she moved to Juba, the capital of South Sudan in 2012. In 2015, Gaitano had to move back to Khartoum, after having been harassed and attacked due to her criticism of the South Sudanese government for what she saw as its mismanagement, corruption, and its role in the South Sudanese civil war. In 2022 Gaitano was awarded a fellowship by the PEN International Writers-in-Exile program and moved to Germany. She has published two short story collections and the novel Edo’s Souls, which came out in 2018.

Sawad Hussain is an award-winning Arabic-English literary translator. She has an MA in Arabic literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies. She has translated two books for Dedalus: Catalogue of a Private Life by Najwa Bin Shatwan(2021) and Edo’s Souls by Stella Gaitano (2023).