Jamal Mahjoub: Navigation of a Rainmaker

Navigation of a Rainmaker by Jamal Mahjoub


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Mahjoub's first three novels, Caroline A Mohsen points out, "emulate the turmoil and uncertainty of Sudan" (541). In Navigation of a Rainmaker, the main character, Tanner, is a lost soul, part Arab Sudanese, part British, who finally asserts himself by killing a mercenary-type American who has come to Sudan in the early 1980s to stimulate instability, rather than work towards peace. The American's moment of revelation is a powerful statement of neo-colonial goals in Africa: "I am here to instill confusion, to sow the seeds of discontent" (168). He taunts Tanner, "you're not the type to act" (169). Faced with roughly the same challenge as the narrator of Season—to act or not to act—Tanner kills the American but is wounded in the skirmish. His last thoughts before dying turn to his sense of purpose—he wants to know if he made a difference, if anyone noticed (183-84). But the novel makes it clear that Tanner's actions were too late, and that the cycles of violence will continue. The novel is prophetically dark, written during the first few years of what would become a 22-year civil war.

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