Ghost Season: A Novel

by Fatin Abbas

Overview

A dynamic, beautifully orchestrated debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.

A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden disappearance of cook Layla, a northern nomad with whom he’s fallen in love. Meanwhile, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect to her unfamiliar homeland, and white midwestern aid worker Alex finds his plans thwarted by a changing climate and looming civil war. Dancing between the adults is Mustafa, a clever, endearing twelve-year-old, whose schemes to rise out of poverty set off cataclysmic events on the compound.

Amid the paradoxes of identity, art, humanitarian aid, and a territory riven by conflict, William, Layla, Dena, Alex, and Mustafa must forge bonds stronger than blood or identity. Weaving a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan into the lives of these captivating characters, Fatin Abbas explores the porous and perilous nature of borders—whether they be national, ethnic, or religious—and the profound consequences for those who cross them. Ghost Season is a gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324001744
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/10/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	503,600
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Fatin Abbas received her MFA from Hunter College, where she was a recipient of the Bernard Cohen Short Story Prize and the Miriam Weinberg Richter Award. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Freeman’s, and the Nation. She lives in Berlin, Germany.

Editorial Reviews

11/07/2022

Abbas debuts with an impressive account of five people who work for a humanitarian organization as war threatens their town on the border of North and South Sudan. William Luol, a Nilot, has been hired as a translator for Alex, an American, who’s been sent there to make a map of the area to guide aid efforts. William has a crush on Layla, the organization compound’s nomad cook, whom he worries about when she doesn’t show for work one day and a burned corpse is found upriver. He asks 12-year-old Mustafa, who cleans the compound, to find out where she lives, while Dena, a Sudanese American filmmaker staying for a few months, documents the herdsmen who brought the body to be buried, as rumors fly of renewed clashes with Southern rebels. Layla reappears and things between her and William blossom, while Alex, frustrated by impediments to his mapmaking, fights with Dena. Meanwhile, Mustafa secretly gets involved running guns for the rebels, and all become on edge when militias arrive in town and target Nilotes. With security deteriorating, Alex tries to evacuate, but a weather delay forces him back, and events that follow have heavy consequences for all. Abbas skillfully navigates boundaries between the disparate players and builds a fine drama out of their negotiations and bonds. Readers will be captivated by this immersive novel. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Immersive and astonishing, Ghost Season brings alive with brilliant specificity the Sudanese border town of Saraaya, and an unforgettable cast of characters linked by circumstance and fate. Fatin Abbas is a remarkable writer, and this novel an extraordinary debut."

Claire Messud

"Utterly mesmerizing, and a brilliant depiction of the blurry psychological and physical borders that divide Sudan and South Sudan. An extremely promising and important first novel."

Dave Eggers

"A triumph of storytelling: richly imagined, finely wrought and filled with such vivid, wondrous characters. I finished this book and immediately wanted to read it again. Abbas is a writer of prodigious powers."

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

"Ghost Season travels that narrow road between austere and gut-wrenching, and does it with incomparable grace. From the first words of this gorgeous novel to the last, Fatin Abbas holds us spellbound, immersed in the lives and the world that unfold in its pages. Beyond the debris of war and displacement, she reminds us, rests something else that can never be truly extinguished: hope."

Maaza Mengiste

★ 01/01/2023

DEBUT The Second Sudanese Civil War forms the backdrop for this disturbing debut novel from Fatin Abbas, soon to be a professor of creative writing at MIT. Five disparate characters meet on an NGO compound in Saraaya, a village uneasily straddling north and south. Naïve, unprepared American surveyor Alex is remapping the area to reflect changes in grazing and agricultural landscapes, a result of global warming. William, a multilingual member of the southern Nilote tribe, serves as guide and translator, while Layla, from an impoverished family of northern nomads, cooks for the group and mothers 11-year-old Mustafa, a clever, ambitious factotum. Prickly Sudanese American filmmaker Dena completes this motley crew, each searching for fulfillment in one of the most volatile areas on the continent. As Alex impatiently awaits permits, this pseudo family bonds over shared meals, learning bits of each other's languages and accepting differences. The burgeoning love between Layla and Matthew creates an atmosphere of joy that the author tempers with the discovery of a burned corpse near the compound, a harbinger of looming disaster. VERDICT Hopeful and despairing in equal measure, Abbas takes readers on an emotional roller coaster, employing her protagonists as metaphor for Sudan's possibilities if it was not mired in poverty, hunger, and tribal rivalries. A propulsive read; highly recommended.—Sally Bissell

Library Journal