An Illumination
Some time ago, watching the news on a minor TV channel, a story stopped me cold: the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. Some images and pieces of information stayed with me, working quietly beneath the surface — the way certain things do when you simply cannot let them go.
While I was completing The Land on the Horizon — recently published and now available in three languages — the image of a strong, intelligent woman began to take shape. A woman who felt, deep in her heart, the need to put her work at the service of a people who had been suffering for years. In a previous book, my poetry collection Nella carne, nel cuore (“In the Flesh, in the Heart”), in the poem Mondi mai esistiti (“Worlds That Never Existed”), I wrote about the creative process:
Characters,
companions of shadow,
arrive slowly,
full of voices and intertwined destinies.
Worlds that never existed
conquer the moment.
That is exactly how Nicole arrived.
A Forgotten War in a Beautiful Country
The conflict in Sudan erupted in April 2023 between two rival military factions. In three years of war, approximately 13.6 million people have been forced to leave their homes — 9.3 million internally displaced and 4.3 million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. An estimated 33.7 million people — around two thirds of the population — are expected to need humanitarian assistance in 2026, and 21 million face acute food insecurity. Sudan is today described by the international community as the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet.
And yet the world is largely silent about it.
Nicole and the Power of Literature
The character who took shape in my mind was a French journalist who travels to Sudan because she believes some stories must be told. Because silence is never neutral. A woman who carries with her the faces of the Sudanese people and the beauty of a country that could have a magnificent future. A woman who takes no political sides, but appeals to the humanity in people — who fights an intellectual and cultural battle.
I believe in the power of literature to speak for the forgotten. Think of the reportage books of Ryszard Kapuściński — a lifetime dedicated to giving voice to a forgotten Africa. It is my hope to contribute to keeping a light of hope alive.
Sudan is not the only theme of my novel, but it is an important one — symbolically. Because it speaks to all the forgotten conflicts that occupy a marginal place in our media.
For Yasmin, Mohammed, Ali, Nour, Fatima, Suleiman
Through the character of Nicole, I wanted to express my feelings of support for Sudan and to raise awareness of the dramatic situation in the country among as many people as possible. I hope that Nicole’s message finds its way into the minds and hearts of readers — and pushes them to seek out information, to learn more, and not to look away.
As Nicole writes to her husband Gaël in the novel:
“I will not go to Sudan for geopolitical reasons. I will go for Yasmin, Mohammed, Ali, Nour, Fatima, Suleiman. I go for the faces that stayed with us during our travels. I go for the breathtaking landscapes. I go for a country that could have a magnificent future.”
