A LINE IN THE RIVER: Khartoum, city of memory

401pp., illus., map, paperback, Reprint, Bloomsbury, London, (2018) 2019

ISBN: 9781408885451

Jamal Mahjoub combines his evocative memoir with a nuanced exploration of the complex history, politics and religion of Sudan and it's capital city, Khartoum.

"A travelogue and memoir to rank with anything by Chatwin or Thubron ... Jamal Mahjoub's absorbing portrait of Khartoum is equally as intimate and painfully detached as the writer's own relationship with his birthplace. Both his city and his book are enthralling in their complexities and their subtlety. A Line in the River provides an enticing first encounter for those readers who have never seen the confluence of the Niles - but it is also an affecting and heartfelt reminder, for those of us who have passed time in Khartoum, why it is we long and fear for it so deeply. I have been waiting more than fifty years for this book" Jim Crace

"A Line in the River is a fine and very readable celebration of a city that has never had its fair share of attention. There is something bracing about the way Jamal Mahjoub awakens our interest in somewhere we know so little about, and about which there is so much we ought to know. He tells the story of Khartoum and Sudan from both an African and a western perspective which makes the book informative and accessible, and always held together by the intimacy of his personal voyage of discovery" Michael Palin

Jamal Mahjoub was born in London and spent his formative years in Khartoum, Sudan. Since then he has lived in a number of cities, including London, Aarhus, Barcelona and, more recently, Amsterdam. He is the author of seven novels, including The Fugitives, Travelling With Djinns, In the Hour of Signs and Navigation of a Rainmaker, as well as a fictionalised memoir, Wings of Dust. He has also published six crime novels featuring private detective Makana, using the pen name Parker Bilal.