Lyrics Alley- by Leila Aboulela

Rating= 8/10 

I’ve tried to remember what made me get this book in vain. But as it has progressed, I’ve found myself thanking the gods for this strike of luck that brought me this gold. 
The story is told in a very simple way. Like on top of using simple English, the flow is so good that even with my poor memory, at no point did I get lost on who is who ( and it does have many characters). 
I couldn’t place the culture though- I’ve read Christian books and I’ve read books written by Muslims, but the people in this book seemed to belong to neither. 
So page after page it introduced me to a culture I’ve never encountered before. 

Just to realise its a Sudanese book at the end of it! Sudanese in both the author’s home and the context. 
This has excited me to no end. Not because I don’t think some countries have their own books but because of how few and rare they are. Even on the Internet. 

A while ago I decided to make a list of books from the 54 countries of Africa. And it was such a displeasure to find some countries whose population is 99.9% black having all their famous books written by whites. 

So finding a Sudanese book was really a pleasant surprise. 

Overall, I would recommend the book to people who love good stories. Not necessarily stories that inspire you like the On Black Sister’s Street book, but stories like the one grandma would  tell you and it sticks to your mind long after you heard.