My Sudanese grandmother couldn’t fathom why I read books full of dragons and danger but in them I saw the person I could be
My grandmother, Hajja Susu, was a vociferous reader. Her book collection in our family’s Sudanese home was a sight to behold. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were inlaid into the walls of the lounge room, the book spines seeming almost structural, the very backbone of a house that sheltered generations. Making one’s way through the desert-dust-covered library was a rite of passage; how else would we learn to solve a murder mystery, identify the symptoms of gout, or perfect cross-stitch?
I became a bonafide expert in tropical diseases by thumbing through the thick tomes of the “Tell Me Why” series, memorising the treatment for malaria, tape worm and dengue fever “just in case”. Agatha Christie’s teachings on murder were second to none, and the poetry of studying her lessons in Sudan wasn’t lost on me. I read Death on the Nile on the banks of that very same river.
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