The Drowning

Ziada (The Book of Khartoum) delves into forced marriages, sexual violence, and oppression in a rural Sudanese town in this affecting if opaque nonlinear narrative. It’s 1969, and each time a dead body washes up on the shores of the Nile by the village of Hajar Narti, a woman named Fatima hopes it might be her daughter, who went missing 28 years earlier. Meanwhile, in flashbacks, Ziada shows how impoverished single mother Fayit Niddu, formerly enslaved, was raped as a child by her master’s son, Abd al-Razeq. Abd al-Razeq’s iron-fisted mother, Radiya, violently punishes Fayit Niddu after she gets pregnant, and the abuse continues as Fayit Niddu raises her daughter, Abir, now 13. When Abir stands up to Radiya’s abuse, Radiya removes her from school, crushing Fayit Niddu’s dreams for her daughter and subsequently turning Abir into prey for the town’s men. When Abir herself becomes pregnant, her mother makes a deal that leads to another tragedy. The shuffling timeline and loose web of stories can be hard to follow, but Ziada’s haunting portrayal of the Nile as both lifeblood and ever-present threat, “flowing languidly past the unmemorable village of Hajar Narti,” gains power as Fatima continues to stand watch over the dead. This unflinching portrait of violence is not for the faint of heart. (Sept.)