See here for methodology. I am excluding books not actually set in the current borders of Sudan, which is tricky, given that they changed quite recently.

I had to exclude a lot of books here; when LibraryThing and Goodreads users deply the ‘sudan’ tag, they don’t always check to see whether it’s a book mainly set in what’s now South Sudan, and of course it’s also used for books about Sudanese people affected by the conflict but who fled to other countries (usually the USA). I disqualified the following books set in the south: A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park; They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, by Benson Deng; Acts of Faith, by Philip Caputo; and Emma’s War, by Deborah Scroggins.

I also disqualified the following for being less than 50% set in Sudan: What Is the What, by Dave Eggers; The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright; Home of the Brave, by Katherine Applegate; The White Nile, by Alan Moorehead; Running for My Life, by Lopez Lomong; Minaret, by Leila Aboulela; The Translator, by Leila Aboulela; The Blue Nile, by Alan Moorehead; and The Good Braider, by Terry Farish.

But the list I ended up with is gratifyingly strong, with Nnedi Okorafor’s early hit Who Fears Death (clearly set in an alternative Sudan) topping the LibraryThing list, and one of two books by the great Sudanese writer Tayeb Saleh topping the Goodreads list. I’m ashamed to say that I have not yet read any of them.

Coming next: Uganda, Spain and Algeria.