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Stella Gaitano (Arabic: إستيلا قايتانو, b. 1979 in Khartoum, Sudan) is a literary writer and pharmacist from South Sudan. She is known for her stories often dealing with the harsh living conditions of people from southern Sudan, who have endured discrimination and military dictatorship, or war and displacement in the northern part of Sudan. Since the independence of South Sudan in 2011, she also has published short stories about life in her new nation.

Stella Gaitano
Native name	إستيلا قايتانو
Born	1979 (age 42–43) Khartoum, Sudan
Occupation	pharmacist and literary writer
Citizenship	South Sudan
Alma mater	University of Khartoum
Genre	short stories, novel
Years active	2002 - present
Notable awards	Ali El-Mek Award, Sudan

Life and career

Having grown up in a neighbourhood of Khartoum before the separation of the southern from the northern part of Sudan, Gaitano learned several languages. With her parents from the South, she spoke Latuka, a South Sudanese language, and with other people, Sudanese Arabic. At the University of Khartoum, she studied in English and standard Arabic. - For her stories, she prefers to write in Arabic, which is her language of choice for writing, but not an official language of South Sudan. Since 2012, Gaitano has been living in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, where her books are published. She works as a pharmacist, while at the same time pursuing her literary career.[1]

In an article for the New York Times by Sudanese journalist Isma’il Kushkush, she said: “I love the Arabic language, and I adore writing in it. It is the linguistic mold that I want to fill my personal stories and culture in, distinguished from that of Arabs.” Further, she explained her reasons for using Arabic: “It was important for me that northern Sudanese realize that there was life, values and a people who held a different culture, who needed space to be recognized and respected.”[1]

Withered Flowers (2002), Gaitano’s first short story collection, tells the stories of people who have been displaced by conflicts in southern Sudan, Darfur, and the Nuba mountains and were forced to live in camps near Khartoum.[2] They were written between 1998 and 2002, when Gitano was still a student.[3] According to literary critic Marcia Lynx Qualey, "This early work demonstrates vibrant wordplay, fearless empathy and a deep understanding of storycraft."[4]

In her second collection The Return (2018), she described the southward journey of South Sudanese people from the North to their newly created country. Further, she told of her characters' expectations and great hopes, and their even greater disappointments.[5] In 2016, her Testimony of a Sudanese Writer was featured in the English literary magazine Banipal's spring edition, titled Sudanese Literature Today.[6]

On the occasion of an exhibition for Sudanese painter Ibrahim el-Salahi at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2019, Gaitano was invited to use el-Salahi’s Prison Notebook as a source of inspiration for creating an original, fictional narrative, and she focussed her story The Rally of the Sixth of April on a fictional Sudanese photographer documenting the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19.[7][8]

In 2020, her Eddo’s Souls was the first South Sudanese novel to win the English PEN writers Translates Award.[9] According to a review in literary magazine ArabLit, "The novel begins across a rural context, in a small impoverished village full of mystery, rituals, and superstition, and it ends in a jam-packed city with all its complications."[10]

As she had publicly criticized the South Sudanese authorities because of mismanagement, corruption and its role in the South Sudanese civil war, she was harassed and attacked and had to flee back to Khartoum in 2015.[11] In 2022, Gaitano was awarded a fellowship of the PEN International Writers-in-Exile programme in Germany. On September 11 of that year she participated in the International Literature Festival Berlin on a panel about contemporary Arabic literature, together with novelist Sabah Sanhouri from Khartoum.[12]

Selected works

Short stories

• Withered Flowers, short stories, (2002), English translation by Anthony Calderbank[3]
• A Lake the Size of a Papaya Fruit, (2003), won the Ali El-Mek Award in Sudan
• The Return, short stories, Rafiki Publishing, Juba (2015), translated by Asha Musa El-Said[13]
• Everything here boils
• Homecoming
• Escape From the Regular
• I kill myself and rejoice[14]
• The Rally of the Sixth of April, (2019) (inspired by Ibrahim el-Salahi's prison notebook, in Arabic and English)[7]
• Des mondes inconnus sur la carte (2009) in French anthology Nouvelles du Soudan[15]

Novel

• Eddo’s Souls, (2018) English translation by Dedalus Books, excerpt in ArabLit magazine.

See also

• Sudanese literature
• List of Sudanese writers

References

Further reading

• Al-Malik, A., Gaetano, S., Adam, H., Baraka, S. A., Karamallah, A., Mamoun, R., & Luffin, X. (2009). Nouvelles du Soudan. Paris: Magellan & Cie. (in French)
• Sudanese literature today. London: Banipal magazine. 2016. ISBN 978-0-9574424-7-4. OCLC 951463818.
• Excerpt of Stella Gaitano's short story "Homecoming", translated by Asha Musa El-Said

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