In The Translator, Daoud Hari provides an engrossing and moving account of the horrendous impact that the conflict in Darfur has had upon the civilians of Sudan.
War in Darfur
Although military conflict and the genocide that it has caused in Darfur, an oil rich region of western Sudan, has been going on since February 2003 it has, despite occasional bursts of publicity in the media, largely been ignored by an international community preoccupied with other conflicts.
The war in Darfur is being fought along ethnic lines with the Government forces and the Janjaweed militia seeking to remove non-Arab Sudanese off of the oil rich lands. Rebel groups such as the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement have been fighting back and now, as well as fighting the rebels, the Janjaweed have started to attack civilians of the same ethnicity as the rebels.
There are no official figures available but it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have already been killed during the five years of conflict.
A firsthand account by one of the millions of Sudanese civilians who have been caught up in the conflict is long overdue but, with The Translator, Daoud Hari succeeds in providing a factually accurate yet highly emotive account of the horrendous impact the war has had on the people of Darfur that is impossible to ignore.
The Translator
Daoud Hari is a Zaghawa tribesman who had lived abroad for many years. Shortly after his return to Darfur, Hari’s village was attacked by the Janjaweed and his brother was killed. Hari was able to help many of his relatives and neighbours flee across the desert to a refugee camp in Chad but he felt compelled to return to Darfur and use his English language skills to assist the work of genocide investigators and reporters.
During one such investigative trip into the heart of Darfur, Hari and a National Geographic reporter, Paul Salopek, are captured by the Janjaweed militia. The militiamen who capture them are from the same tribe as Hari but they have changed sides to support the government. Hari and Salopek are separated and then tortured and threatened with death unless they reveal all that they know about rebel activities and foreign spies.
Eventually, after campaigning by friends and international charity organisations, Hari was freed from captivity and he now lives as a refugee in the United States where he works to raise awareness of the genocide in Darfur.
A Distressing Account
The main purpose that Daoud Hari had in writing The Translator was to give the situation in Darfur a personal element that made it that much harder for the international community to ignore and he has certainly done so.
The events that are chronicled in The Translator are harrowing yet hugely compelling. It is impossible to be unaffected by the vivid picture of suffering and devastation that Hari paints and it is likewise impossible not to be impressed by the courage and humanity that Hari retained throughout his numerous ordeals.
The Translator is a distressing, educational and thoroughly recommended memoir by a truly remarkable man.
The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari
ISBN 978-0141037004, Penguin Books Ltd, 2008, £8.99, pp224
