Searching the bookshelves for something suitable for Novellas in November I came across Cities Without Palms, a 1992 novella by Sudanese-born author Tarek Eltayer.
It’s a work of fiction about a journey born out of desperation, disease and famine. It’s the story of Hamza, a gentle young man from Wad al-Nar, a Sudanese village ravaged by drought and crop failure. When his father abandoned the family, Hamza feels that responsibility for his mother and two younger sisters now falls upon his shoulders.
The desert keeps growing, and sorrow, not rain is all that comes to us. Drought and disease, agony and death: we are the dying, the living dead.
In desperation he decides to head north and seek work in the city so he can send money back to his family. His decision sees him travel ever further away from Wad al-Nar. First to the nearest big city — Omdurman — then to the capital Khartoum, before crossing into Egypt and finally getting to Europe.
Place names change but what remains constant is the harshness of life as a migrant worker. Hamza is inexperienced and uneducated, willing to turn his hand to any job opportunity, even if it’s not strictly legal.
In Omdurman falls in with a gang selling petrol siphoned from parked cars, then he sets himself up as a spice trader, selling produce stolen from shops in the souk. Later in Egypt he becomes a smuggler. Not out of choice, but out of necessity.
What sustains him through his many misfortunes is the friendships he makes along the way and the hope that the money he sends back to Sudan is keeping his mother and sisters alive.
Cities without Palms is an uncompromising account of poverty and life on the margins. Tarek Etayeb recounts the desperation of life in Sudan while showing that the world outside presents its own challenges. Every time Hamza thinks he’s on a path to stability and has a chance to make an honest living, his hopes prove short lived. His fellow smugglers disappear (presumed caught by customs officers); the farm work in Europe evaporates once winter arrives and he’s booted out from a nightclub job when the owner discovers he’s “an illegal.”
There’s an overwhelming sense of sadness in this novel, particularly in the final pages when Hamza. It makes an impact though feels underdeveloped in many places. Hamza’s experiences in all those different countries and environments was rich fodder yet they are handled with great rapidity. Cairo, Rome, Holland and Belgium all flash by in the space of a few pages. An interesting book but it felt more like an appetiser than a full meal.