#123 mit Stella Gaitano - Perspectives on Sudan through literature

Episode von Kleine Pause von Nicole Schweiß · 5. Juli 2026 · 1 h 01 min

Stella Gaitano is a South Sudanese writer and human rights activist. Her debut novel Edo's Souls (Eddos goldenes Lächeln, 2018), the first South Sudanese novel to receive a PEN Translates Award, has recently been published in German translation at Kiwi Verlag. Since 2022, she has been living in Germany, currently seeking asylum. In this episode, we speak about literature, identity, language and exile, trying to form bridges to the question which part school plays in all that.

The conversation moves from school as a site of possible trauma and structural inequality, where language policies in Sudan systematically excluded South Sudanese students from higher education to Stella's multilingual biography and her decision to write in Arabic. Central to the episode is the gap between how Sudan is portrayed in Western media and what Sudanese life and culture actually contain. Literature, Stella argues, builds empathy and asks the questions that news cycles never raise. Her novel follows characters navigating gender, class, religion, and the north-south divide, rooted in Sudan, but telling a story that is universally human.

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