selected poetry and prose
by Najlaa Osman Eltom
Translated by Mayada Ibrahim
ISBN: 9781069370440
September 2026 | OPEN TO PRE-ORDERS
Poetry | Translation | Arabic
* draft cover (to be updated)
The deep wounds in god's dream await me
holding a silver sign with my name on it
Developed as an active collaboration between translator Mayada Ibrahim and the celebrated Sudanese poet Najlaa Osman Eltom, this bilingual edition gathers poems from her three published volumes alongside previously untranslated work, and concludes with an illuminating conversation between poet and translator. Tracing the development of a distinctive poetic voice, nūn establishes Eltom's reputation as an incisive lyricist of the visceral, the political, and the surreal.
Eltom's twenty-five-year poetic journey, divided between Sudan and Sweden, transforms the rupture of migration through a poetics of alienation and self-rediscovery. In this process, the immigrant's identity – so often constructed as a limiting frontier – offers, instead, a sharpened sensitivity as to how colonial politics are reinvented, how communities are destroyed, and why the global South remains a space of violence and disenfranchisement.
Rich with inter-textual resonance, Eltom's writing draws upon vernacular poetry, song, and Sufi literary traditions. Employing the rhythmic repetitions of dhikr and the mystical pursuit of irfani knowledge, she weaves biographical detail from a lifetime lived under an oppressive regime with materials gleaned from years of studying the colonial archives. The result is a body of work that speaks simultaneously to Sudan's complex past and to urgent questions of memory, power, and resistance.
Najlaa Osman Eltom is a Sudanese poet, writer, and literary translator whose work delves into the fluid landscapes of memory and the intersections of language and movement. She has published three poetry collections in Arabic, alongside numerous short stories and essays. Eltom is actively engaged in bringing Sudanese literature to global audiences as an author and translator, and was the co-recipient of the 2025 inaugural PEN Presents x International Booker Prize Translation Grant (with Mayada Ibrahim) for their translation of Stella Gaitano's work. She has lived in exile in Sweden since 2012.
Mayada Ibrahim is a literary translator and editor, based in New York with roots in Khartoum and London. She was the co-recipient of the 2025 inaugural PEN Presents x International Booker Prize Translation Grant (with Najlaa Osman Eltom) for their translation of Stella Gaitano's work. She has received the PEN Translates Award, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and a British Science Fiction Association Award. She teaches Arabic at Hunter College in New York and is the managing editor for 52 Walker.