Transition Magazine, the historic literary and cultural journal of the African diaspora published by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, has released a special issue on Sudan. Guest-edited by Rogaia Abusharaf, the issue confronts a question that has haunted many observers: when will all eyes turn to Sudan, as the social media campaign #alleyesonsudan demands? The blood of those killed by the Rapid Support Forces can now be seen from space, yet even this horror risks passing into the void as we scroll past it. While Gaza and Ukraine have drawn the bulk of the world’s attention, the genocide in Sudan continues without much discussion or genuine outrage, as if its complexities are too hard to parse. Who is the bad guy? Who is the good guy? The answers are not easy and do not break upon simple moral fault lines.
This current issue lays bare the historical and political complexities of Sudan’s crisis, centering the voices of people who have found themselves and their families in the crosshairs of such complexities. Many in the West have dismissed this war as another African war that does not concern them, but Abusharaf and her contributors make clear that this war and its genocide are emblematic of the complex new imperialisms sweeping the globe and taking democracy with them. In her introduction, Abusharaf writes that the accounts in this collection refuse academic abstraction, emerging instead from lived experience, families fleeing checkpoints, artists documenting torture, communities confronting incomprehensible change. She asks the question that haunts every page: Will Sudan survive?
The Sudanese have a great capacity for organizing and a deep history of revolution, but as Abusharaf notes, that will not suffice. Sudanese survival demands that the international community move beyond the failed paradigm of elite negotiations and recognize that Sudan’s crisis reflects broader patterns of extraction and abandonment that pervade the global order. The same forces that enable external actors to fuel proxy wars through weapons shipments, that allow multinational corporations to profit from humanitarian catastrophe, that permit the systematic weaponization of famine, these forces operate across Africa and the Global South. Sudan is not an exception but a symptom of how power operates in our current moment.
The issue features personal essays, memoir, and short fiction by Rogaia Abusharaf, Jamal Mahjoub, Fatin Abbas, Ahmed Abdel Aal, Wagas Elsadig, Suzi Mirghani, and David Mikhail. Poetry comes from Mohammad al-Fayturi, Lameese Badr, Nadaa Hussein, and Safia Elhillo. Historical and political analysis is provided by Nisrin Elamin, Alex de Waal, Hamid Ali, Ahmad Sikainga, and Hassan Musa, while Alden Young and Lynda Iroulo contribute forward-looking essays. The issue also showcases art by Kamala Ishag, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Salah Elmur, Amel Bashier, Reem Aljeally, Mosab Abushama, Metche Jafaar, Yasmeen Abdullah, Issam Abdelhafiez, Ahmed Shibrain, and Osman Wagialla, among others.
Founded in Uganda in 1961 by Rajat Neogy, Transition has served as a major platform for African and diasporic writers and intellectuals for over six decades. Under the editorship of Henry Louis Gates Jr. since 1991, the magazine has evolved into an international forum about race and culture with an emphasis on the African diaspora. This special Sudan issue represents the magazine’s continued commitment to being both an anchor of deep reflection on Black life and a map charting new routes through the globalized world. It refuses to allow Sudan’s crisis to remain invisible, insisting instead that we reckon with the forces that have brought a country to the brink, and asking what it will take, not just for Sudan to survive, but for all of us to recognize our shared stake in that survival.
Order a copy of this issue here.
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