In Review

04 December 2008 02:39 BST

The Translator by Daoud Hari

Published by Penguin, out June 5th, paperback, 224pp, £8.99.

In a nutshell…

Powerful, epic, philosophical, tragic, uplifting.

What's it all about?

The last five years have seen a terrible genocide committed in Sudan's western Darfur region. At least 200,000 have been killed and 1.5 million displaced by the government's campaign of ethnic cleansing against the region's settled tribes. The international community has responded with outrage and, after much to-ing and fro-ing, with a struggling peacekeeping force. Any personal memoirs coming out of that conflict are bound to be wrought with tragedy. The Translator also brings hope.

Who's it by?

Daoud Hari had left his tribe in Darfur to find work in Egypt and Israel before his life was changed by the conflict affecting his people. After spells in jail he returned to his home just in time to see it destroyed by the janjaweed, losing his brother along the way. His "fate", he decided, was to use his language skills to help foreign journalists report on Darfur. The atrocities he witnesses were many and it was on one of his trips back into Sudan from neighbouring Chad that he was captured by his enemies. This is the episode which dominates the second half of this short book. He now lives in the US, where his journalist friends have helped him get his experiences into print.

As an example…

"I should have told Nick what they were saying, but I think he understood; their frightened faces and gestures needed no translation. Somehow, I had no fear myself. Whatever it was that makes a rebel or a government soldier or a janjaweed feel like he is already dead anyway and might as well just do his job – it was like that."

"The anger that poured out of him was so great that you could see his soul knew very well that he was completely wrong. That is always when anger is the greatest and most dangerous."

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

This not only could, but should be made into a big Hollywood film. It has the same emotional depth of The Shawshank Redemption but is an injustice, not against one man, but against an entire people. By telling Mr Hari's story the world will learn more about the Darfur conflict. Writing a book about the conflict will raise awareness, but a movie version would do that tenfold. With the right actor in place – and this would be an extraordinarily challenging performance – a well-produced film could work its way into the award ceremony stakes.

So is it any good?

Like many works about Darfur, The Translator is surprisingly uplifting. The essential elements of humanity's positive side come to the fore in the face of destruction and the rare moments of humour are to be cherished all the more as a result. Mr Hari tells his story with sadness, of course, and many passages are utterly heartbreaking. This is none more so when it comes to the end of the early chapters, when the book reads almost like a work of philosophy.

Perhaps its biggest weakness is brevity. The final episode is well-paced, as is the period before our hero begins his translation work. But the middle section of the book passes by all too quickly. Mr Hari muses that there are many ways for Darfuris to suffer, but only recounts a few of the stories he translated for western journalists.

This is only a minor gripe, however. Perhaps it is for the best, preventing the reader from becoming too bogged down in page after page of misery and despair. Mr Hari retains a sense of proportion he could easily have been forgiven for losing. He empathises with the teenage soldiers who kidnap him, and even those who threaten to torture him. He mourns with those who have lost their children and is haunted by the worst incidents. But he is also somehow impartial, watching his world collapse with a weary eye. The Translator becomes a reporter, telling his story with infinitely more power than the journalists he once worked for.

8/10

Alex Stevenson