Jamal Mahjoub is currently working on a non-fiction book on the conflicts in Darfur. The Dutch translation of his novel The carrier (De boodschapper) was published by Prometheus (translation: Nele Ysebaert). Amsterdam will be his hometown from mid July until mid August.
Mahjoub was born in London (1960) and brought up in Khartoum, Sudan. Originally trained as a geologist, he has worked as a librarian, painter, chef, curator, journalist and translator, but is now a full-time writer. After many years in Denmark, Mahjoub now lives in Spain. Western Europe has become his home, although in his books, his African roots are always present.
In his work languages and times melt into each other. Here literature and history meet, science and superstition and at the same time the conditions are discussed under which people from different cultures live with or alongside each other. His first three novels address, directly or indirectly, the question of Sudan and its history via the generation of Nubians, living in the North of the country, who fought for more equality between the ethnic groups; a generation to which Mahjoub’s father also belongs.