Almost everyone has heard about the conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan, the Janjaweed militias, the struggling peacekeeping and foreign aid efforts, and how the president of Sudan has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, but most westerners do not really understand what is happening in Darfur or why. Daoud Hari’s book The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur explains the issues in a moving and succinct manner.
The author is a member of a Zaghawa family, and his childhood was spent in Darfur happily mingling with the local Arabs and sharing the Muslim faith, although from time to time there were disputes with the Arabs over land. The disputes became worse as climate change reduced the amount of available pasture, and since 2003 the Sudanese Army and Arab Janjaweed militias have been driving the ethnic Africans out of Darfur. When the author’s village was sacked, he was displaced into Chad and became a translator for foreign reporters and aid organisations until he was captured.
The book captures the author’s love for his people and his land, and it tells an extraordinary story of courage, adventure and perseverance in the face of oppression and appalling brutality. It does not make the killings in Darfur seem reasonable, but it does help to give them context, and leaves the reader with a strong sense of the injustice faced by the victims. The book has been edited well and is a pleasure to read.