‘Even if they die, they die standing.’
What’s in a name? Everything. For the writer formerly known as RaMa, revealing her identity carries a certain risk — for her family, for the people she knows back in Sudan, and for her future. But, with the support of PittsburghCity of Asylum, RaMa finally feels comfortable unveiling who she is: Rania Mamoun.
Part of her comfort comes from living in the Steel City. Ms. Mamoun has been in Pittsburgh for three years since leaving her native Sudan in the aftermath of genocidal dictator Omar alBashir’s expulsion from government. She’s been here long enough to find peace in her surroundings.
“Oh, I love Pittsburgh. I love the hills — I love the people and the climate too — but mostly, I love the hills, because where I came from is flat. I also love the trees. There is so much life here.”
Life back home was more complicated. Protesting al-Bashir landed Ms. Mamoun in a Sudanese jail, but after her trial, which felt like a pre-determined farce to her, Ms. Mamoun — a celebrated journalist and writer in her native Sudan — decided to apply for safety abroad.
She reached out to International Cities of Refuge Network back in 2019, and ICORN connected Ms. Mamoun with City of Asylum, who eventually provided her with the resources she needed to thrive. Getting her out of Sudan proved to be a delicate operation, since she was traveling anonymously with her two daughters.
Usually, organizations like City of Asylum are happy to advertise their writers-in-residence, but in the case of Ms. Mamoun, the organization did everything they could to maintain her anonymity. The threat to her safety was too great, as uncertainty lingered over the coup that ousted al-Bashir. Her prose had often provoked the previous administration, and any sign of their return carried great risk for both Ms. Mamoun and her family.
“Some people might be unaware
that City of Asylum’s writersin-residence are artists who are extremely well-known in their home countries for their work and accomplishments. Rania’s previous collection of stories, ‘Thirteen Months a Sunrise,’ was the first major translated collection by a Sudanese woman writer,” said Kelsey Ford, Director of Programs for City of Asylum.
Despite the success of revolutionaries in overthrowing al-Bashir, Ms. Mamoun knew that instability plagued, and continues to plague, her country. She didn’t trust the transitional government, and her instincts proved correct.
This past October 25th marked the one-year anniversary of the most recent coup d’état, when the civilian-led transitional government was overthrown by the military. Sudan’s future seems as uncertainas ever.
For Ms. Mamoun, watching from afar has been agonizing. She arrived in Pittsburgh in the early days of the pandemic, and the combination of isolation, single motherhood, frustration and homesickness finally got to her.
“I had a certain sadness, a kind of depression combined with being scared. So I decided
to go back to writing. I started small, and I became a poet, because I had never written poetry before.”
She was encouraged by Diane Samuels, an artist and co-founder of City of Asylum. For over a hundred days, Ms. Samuels and Ms. Mamoun met over the internet, despite being neighbors, in an attempt to normalize creative practice during the pandemic. Ms. Mamoun wrote poetry and Ms. Samuels responded to the poems with art.
The resulting poems captured Ms. Mamoun’s complex feelings on isolation, beauty and a homeland that seemed increasingly out of reach. They are collected in “Something Evergreen Called Life,” translated by Yasmine Seale.
“These are beautiful poems. But written during COVID and in exile and after the struggle of being a woman and an activist in Sudan, they are also poems that emerge from difficult experiences, like flowers that bloom in the cracks of a sidewalk,” said City of Asylum co-founder Henry Reese.
For Ms. Mamoun, there was some hesitation in writing under own name.
“Yes, this is my first time I used my real name after I was hiding. And that is very, very hard, to not use my name. I wasn’t myself. I had my reasons — for our security and safety for the girls and me. But, I was feeling like I’m losing my freedom, the freedom that I came here for, losing my name, my identity,” she said.
She reached a limit and chose to live a life without fear. “I will deal with [the risks]. I wanted to be brave for my girls, to teach them that no matter what they face in life, they should deal with it. That’s how we learn, how we grow, how we become stronger — by being ourselves in the face of the most difficult challenge.”
“Like trees,” she continued. “I say if I came back to this world in my next life, I would come as a tree. No matter what, they are standing there. Even if they die, they die standing.”
“Ah, but even when we see them as dying in winter, they surprise us and can again come to life,” Ms. Mamoun said. “They just have to grow in the right place.”