Author's note: For assistance in the production of this essay, I owe special thanks to my husband, Vijay Balasubramanian, and to Jane Hogan of the Sudan Archive, Durham University. In 1995-96, a Fulbright- Hays fellowship and grants from three Princeton University sources (Center of International Studies, Boesky & Sternberg Funds; Council on Regional Studies; and Program in Near Eastern Studies) made this research possible.

¹ Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991), 22–36.Google Scholar

² Maḥjūb Muhammad ṣāliḥ al-sūdāniyya ft niṣf qarn, 1903–1953 (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1971), 10–17,Google Scholar including citations from an article by Muhammad Ibrāhim Abū Salīm in al-KharṭDum 4 (January 1961).

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⁸ Ibid., 30; Sharkey, Heather J., “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism in the Northern Sudan, 1898–1956” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., 1998), 191–92, 259–60.Google Scholar For examples of wellknown newspaper pseudonyms, see Sa⊃d Mīkhāil, Shu⊂arā⊃ al-Sūdān (Cairo, c. 1923), 128–35, and Bāshirī, Maḥjūb ⊂Umar, Ruwwād al-fikr al-sūdānl (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1991), 175–77.Google Scholar

⁹ Sudan Archive, University of Durham (hereafter SAD) 542/21/26: S. R. Simpson Papers. Sudan Government, Circular Memorandum no. 39, “El Sudan Times” [sic], Khartoum, 13 February 1905.

¹⁰ ”E1-Sudan Printing Press, F. Nimr & Co., Proprietors” printed annual reports from 1904 to 1905 and from 1908 to 1910; Sudan Government, Reports on the Finance, Administration, and Condition of the Sudan.

¹¹ ‘SAD 662/15/16–45: C. W. M. Cox Papers. Acting Secretary, Graduates’ General Congress, to the Civil Secretary, 5 July 1939, enclosing the Graduates’ General Congress note on education in Sudan.

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¹⁴ Muhammad, BashīrSa⊃id, al-Sūdān min al-ḥukm al-thunā⊂i ilā intifāḍat Rajab,’ vol. 1, part 3: “Min iftitāḥ khazzān Sinnār ilā nash⊂at al-ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyyaa” (Khartoum: Sharikat al-Ayyām lil-Adawāt al-Maktabiyya al-Mahḍūda, 1986), 53.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ The Northern Sudanese publisher of Jewish origin, Sulaymān Dā⊂ūd Mandīl, founded al-Jarīda al-Tijāriyya (The Business Journal) in 1928 and changed its name to Mullaqā al-Nahrdyn (Nile Junction) in 1931. In 1934, it ceased publication by merging into the general-news periodical ḥaḍārat al-Sūdān: Mahjoub Abd al-Malik Babiker, Press and Politics in the Sudan, Graduate College Publications no. 14 (Khartoum: University of Khartoum, 1985), 27–28.Google Scholar

¹⁸ The Sudan Archive at Durham University owns an incomplete run of the Sudan Chamber of Commerce Monthly Journal (1922–34) and the annual Sudan Chamber of Commerce Journal (1949–55).

¹⁹ Muḥammad, MaḥjubṢāliḥ, al-Ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyya, 41–42.Google Scholar

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²¹ ⊂al-Bann, Abd Allāh MuḤammad ⊂Umarā, Dīwān al-Bannā, vol. 1, ed. al-Makk, ⊂Alī (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1976), 10,Google Scholar and Babiker, Yousif Omer, The al-Fajr Movement and Its Place in Modern Sudanese Literature (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1979), 46–48.Google Scholar Regarding the Egyptian neo-classicist poets and their influence on Egyptian nationalism, see Badawi, M. M., A Critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 14–67,Google Scholar and Khouri, Mounah A., Poetry and the Making of Modern Egypt, 1882–1922 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971).Google Scholar

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²³ See the article by “Ibn Sūdān” on such customs as female circumcision, hair plaiting, facial scarring, and the marking of a cross on a newborn in al-Nahḍa 1, no. 9 (29 November 1931). The author of this essay refers to his earlier articles, on similar themes, published in Rā⊃ id al-Sūdān in 1913. See also ⊂Abd al-Majīd ⊂Abidīn, Tārikh al-thaqāfa al-⊂arabiyyafi al-Sūdan, mundhu nash⊃atihā ilā al-⊂aṣr al-ḥadīth; al-dīn, al-ijtimā⊃, al-adab, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1967), 167–72.Google Scholar

²⁴ Najīla, , Malāmih, 23.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid. 24–43; and interview with al-Ṣādiq al-Mahdī in Omdurman, Sudan, 1 November 1995.

²⁶ Quoted in Bashīr Muḥammad ṣa⊃īd, al-Sūdān min al-ḥukm al-thunā⊂ī ilā intifāḍat Rajab, 54.

²⁷ Muḥammad, MaḥjūbṢāliḥ, al-ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyya, 56.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid., 53–60.

²⁹ Aḥmad, Su⊃ad ⊃Abd al-Azīz, Qaḍāyā al-ta⊃lim al-ahlī fi al-Sūdan: al-khalāwī wa'l-madāris al-ahliyya, 1898–1956 (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1991);Google ScholarOsman, Mohammed K., “The Rise and Decline of the People's (Ahlia) Education in the Northern Sudan (1927–1957),” Paedagogica Historica (Ghent), 18, 2 (1979): 355–71;CrossRefGoogle Scholar interview with ⊂Abd al-Raḥman Abū Zayd, Vice-Chancellor, Omdurman Ahlia University, Omdurman, 23 October 1995.

³⁰ Maḥjūb Muḥammad ṣāliḥ, al-ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyya, 61–71.

³¹ Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO) WO 33/997: Sudan Monthly Intelligence Report no. 313, August 1920.

³² PRO FO 370/142, 384: F. C. C. Balfour, Acting Director of Intelligence, to Sudan Agent, Cairo. Khartoum, 24 September 1921.

³³ PRO FO 371/10053: Testimony taken by R. E. H. Baily from Ali Ahmed Saleh, 28 July 1924; and PRO FO 371/10053: Testimony given by Ali Ahmed Saleh to E. N. Corbyn, 23 August 1924.

³⁴ al-Qādir, Ḥasanayn ⊂Abd, Tārīkh al-Ṣiḥafa fi al-Sūdān, 1899–1919 (Cairo: Dār al-Nahḍa al-⊂Arabiyya, 1967), 12.Google Scholar

³⁵ PRO FO 371/10050: Petition signed by leading inhabitants of Omdurman, trans., Omdurman, 10 June 1924; and Sharkey, “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism,” 134–36.

³⁶ Babiker, , Press and Politics in the Sudan, 26.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibrāhīm al-Ḥardallū, al-Ribāt al-thaqāfi bayna Miṣr wa al-Sūdān (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1977), 127.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ḥamad, Khiḍir, Mudhakkirāt Khiḍir Ḥamad: al-Ḥaraka al-waṭaniyya al-sūdāniyya, al-Istiqlāl wa-mā ba⊃dahu (n.p.: Maṭba⊃at Ṣawt al-Khalīj, 1980), 25–26.Google Scholar

³⁹ Sharkey, Heather J., “Arabic Literature and the Nationalist Imagination in Kordofan,” in Kordofan Invaded: Peripheral Incorporation and Social Transformation in Islamic Africa, ed. Kevane, Michael and Stiansen, Endre (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998), 165–79;Google ScholarSharkey, , “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism,” 285–90.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Sharkey, , “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism,” 64–69, regarding the fluidity of “Egyptian” and “Sudanese” identities.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid., 34–39.

⁴² Osman, Khalid H. A., The Effendia and Concepts of Nationalism in the Sudan (Ph.D. diss., University of Reading, 1987, 122–25).Google Scholar

⁴³ Sharkey, , “Arabic Literature.”Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Muḥammad, Maḥjūbṣāliḥ, al-ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyya, 102–12, 119.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Copies of al-Nahḍa and al-Fajr are preserved at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Bergen in Norway. I am particularly indebted to R. S. O'Fahey for granting me access to them.

⁴⁶ Sharkey, , “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism,” 304–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ibid., 128–49.

⁴⁸ Muḥammad Aḥmad Maḥjūb, “al-Shu⊂ūr al-qawmī (wa-ḥājatunā ilayhi),” al-Nahḍa, 1, 11 (21 February 1932); Maḥjūb, Muḥammad Aḥmad, “al-Shi⊂r al-qawmī,” al-Fajr, 1, 8 (16 09 1934), 329–32;Google ScholarMaḥjūb, Muḥammad Aḥmad, “Wājib al-udabā⊂ naḥwa ummatihim wa-fannihim,” al-Fajr, 1, 9 (1 10 1934), 385–88.Google ScholarThese appear in Maḥjūb, Muḥammad Aḥmad, Naḥwa al-ghad (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1970), 57–61, 113–16, 117–20.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ ⊂Ābidīn, , Tārīkh al-thaqāfa al-⊂arabiyya, 334–46.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ ⊂Arafāt (Muḥammad ⊂Abd Allāh), “al-Ma⊃mūr,” in al-Fajr, 1, 6 (16 08 1934), 265–70;Google Scholaral-Fajr, 1, 14 (16 12 1934), 654–55.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Article on impregnation and conception by Allāh, al-Fāḍil Dafa⊂, al-Fajr, 1, 15 (1 01 1935), 678–80;Google Scholar article on typhoid by DrMuṣṭafā, Muḥammad Zakī, al-Fajr, 1, 10 (16 10 1934), 447–51;Google Scholar article on cancer by DrMuḥammad, ⊂Abd al-Ḥalīm, al-Fajr, 1, 9 (1 10 1934), 414–16.Google Scholar With his cousin, Maḥjūb, Muḥammad Aḥmad, ⊂Abd al-ḥalīm Muḥammad co-authored the autobiography Mawt dunyā, 2nd ed. (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

⁵² Articles by Ḥamdī appeared in the following issues of al-Nahḍa, 1, 1 (4 10 1931), 12–13;Google Scholar 1, 4 (25 October 1931), 8–9; 1, 6 (8 November 1931), 7–8; 1, 13 (27 December 1931), 8–9.

⁵³ Essay by “H. H.” in al-Nahda, 1, 16 (17 01 1932), 11–12;Google Scholar and Sharkey, , “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism,” 351–58.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Issues of educational inequality between husbands and wives have rarely surfaced in modern Arabic literature, despite its social relevance, to the extent that one critic has identified it as a surprising thematic gap: Cachia, Pierre, An Overview of Modern Arabic Literature (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 177.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Sharkey, , “Colonialism and the Culture of Nationalism,” 351–58.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ al-Fajr, 1, 7 (1 09 1934), 311–14.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ibid., 1, 23 (16 July 1935), 1101–8.

⁵⁸ For example, see Mu⊂āwiya Nūr, Mu⊂allafāt, 2 vols. (Khartoum: Qism al-Ta⊂līf wa-al-Nashr, Jāmic⊃at al-Kharṭūm, 1970), 142–49.Google Scholar The nationalist Aḥmad Khayr was an active supporter of the idea of producing local cotton weave—that is, “dammur” cloth: see al-Ṣasan, Muṣṭafā Muḥammad, Rijāl wa-mawāqif fī al-ḥaraka al-waṭaniyya (Khartoum, n.d.), 6–18.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Advertisements for the bookstore and lists of its stock regularly appeared in al-Nahḍa.

⁶⁰ Babiker, , Press and Politics in the Sudan, 38–39.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid., 27, 31, 39. Babiker does not make his sources clear regarding circulation figures. But judging from his other citations, he may have drawn the information from Khartoum Province reports.

⁶² Ibid., 39.

⁶³ See Woodward, Peter, Sudan, 1898–1989: The Unstable State (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1990).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Daly, M. W., Imperial Sudan: The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, 1934–56 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 81.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Sa⊂īd, Bashīr Muḥammad, al-Sūdān min al-ḥukm al-thunā⊃ī ilā intifāḍat Rajab, 66–67;Google Scholaral-Qādir, Ḥasanayn ⊂Abd, Tārīkh al-Ṣiḥāfa fi al-Sūdān, 20–21;Google ScholarBabiker, , Press and Politics in the Sudan, 45–54.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid., 33–37, 49–50, 54.

⁶¹ Al-Nahda, 1, 1 (4 10 1931);Google Scholar and interview with Ismā⊂il al-⊂Atabānī, founder and editor-in-chief of al-Ra⊂y al-⊃Amm, Omdurman, Sudan, 30 October 1995.

⁶⁸ Ibid., 47.

⁶⁹ The Gordon Memorial College at Khartoum, Report and Accounts to 31st December, 1933.

⁷⁰ Griffiths, V. L., An Experiment in Education: An Account of the Attempts to Improve the Lower Stages of Boys’ Education in the Moslem Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1930–1950 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1953), 139–42.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid., 140.

⁷² Ruth Sloan Associates, The Press in Africa, ed. Kitchen, Helen (Washington, D.C.: Ruth Sloan Associates, 1956), 21.Google Scholar

⁷³ Beshir, Mohamed Omer, Educational Development in the Sudan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 212.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ A list of journals being published in 1967 appears in al-Qādir, ḥasanayn ⊂Abd, Tārīkh al-Ṣiḥāfa fi al-Sūdān, 27–28.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Atiyah, Edward, An Arab Tells His Story: A Study in Loyalties (London: John Murray, 1946), 214–25;Google Scholar SAD 736/2/1–27: H. B. Archer Papers. Memoirs of H. B. Archer's life in the Sudan Political Service, from 1928 to 1954.

⁷⁶ Boyd, Douglas A., Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of the Electronic Media in the Middle East, 2nd ed. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993), 58.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid., 61–63.

⁷⁸ UNESCO reported 1995 illiteracy rates of 42.3 percent for males, 65.4 percent for females, and 53.9 percent for the total population: UNESCO, Statistical Yearbook: 1997.

¹⁹ As of 1995, UNESCO reported daily newspaper circulations of 24 per 1,000 inhabitants; television receivers at 84 per 1,000; and radio receivers at 270 per 1,000: Ibid.

⁸⁰ Rugh, William A., The Arab Press: News Media and Political Process in the Arab World, rev., 2nd ed. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 64–67;Google Scholar interview with Ismā⊂il al-⊂Atabānī, 30 October 1995.

⁸¹ Rugh, , The Arab Press, 32.Google Scholar

⁸² Interview with Sirr al-Khatm al-Khalīfa, Khartoum, 19 October 1995. In 1985, Sirral-Khatmal-Khalifa tried to revive children's magazines by publishing al-Fāris, aiming for an audience of twelve-to-sixteen year olds with an average of six years’ education. About ten issues of al-Fāris appeared between 1985 and 1989. Concerned with the consequences of the 1989 coup even for children's periodicals, he ceased publication voluntarily.

⁸³ Bashīr Muhammad Sa⊂īd, author of al-Sūdān min al-ḥukm al-thunā⊃i ilā intifāḍat Rajab, founded the daily al-Ayyām in 1953. His publishing company later started other journals, notably an Englishlanguage daily, The Morning News; a weekly political journal, al-ḥayāt; and a woman's magazine, ḥawwā⊃ al-Jadīda (New Eve). Maḥjūb Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ, author of the al-Ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyya fī niṣf qarn, 1903–1953 (a thorough work, which unfortunately, and despite its title, surveys press developments only up to the early 1930s), served for some years as editor-in-chief for Bashir Muhammad Sa⊂id's English paper, The Morning News.

⁸⁴ Sulaymān Kisha, author of Sūq al-dhikrayāt, was an early journalist who later published his own journal, the literary weekly Mir⊃āt al-Sūdān (Sudan Mirror) in 1934 and 1935, before joining the staff of al-Nīl. Ḥasan Najīla, an editor of al-Ra⊃y al-⊂Āmm for many years, recorded three memoirs, in which he covers journalist developments closely: Malāmiḥ min al-mujtama⊃ al-sūdāni, Dhikrayātī fi al-bādiya (Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāt, 1964); and Dhikrayātī fi dār al-⊂urūba (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, n.d.). In 1967, meanwhile, a revived Mir⊂at al-Sūdān published interviews with Hasan Badri (recounting his memories of working and clerking voluntarily for Rā⊂id al-Sūdān before 1919), and Sulaymān Dā⊃ūd Mandīl (one of the first Sudanese publishers and founder in 1928 of al-Tijāra al-Sūdāniyya, later called Mullaqā al-Nahrayn): Mir⊂āt al-Sūdān (second series), 2 (2 January 1957), cited in Maḥāsin Sa⊃d, al-Ṣiḥāfa al-sūdāniyya, 1900–1939: naĪra min tārīkhihā al-lamḥa min ishāmihā (Khartoum: Economic and Social Research Council, National Council for Research, 1977), 2–3.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Maḥmūd Abū⊂l-⊃AĪā⊃im, Kuntu qarīban minhum, vol. 1 (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1993);Google Scholaral-Qādir, Yaḥyā Muḥammad ⊂Abd, ⊂Alā hāmish al-aḥdāth fi al-Sūdān (Khartoum: Dār al-Sūdāniyya lil-kutub, n.d.);Google Scholaral-Ḥasan, Muḥammad Sa⊂ld Muḥammad, Shakhṣiyyāt ṣaḥafiyya ⊂araftuhā, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Khartoum: Dār al-Ma⊂ārif, 1985).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Boyd, , Broadcasting in the Arab World, 63.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Interview with Sirr al-Khatm al-Khalīfa, 19 October 1995. As an employee in the Ministry of Education (c. 1938–60), Sirr al-Khatm al-Khalifa was appointed director of Arabicization policies in southern Sudan, based at Juba, from 1950 to 1960. Later, in 1964, he served as prime minister of Sudan. For a manifesto of the Northern Sudanese-dominated government view regarding Arabicization policies, see Sudan, , Maktab al-Isti⊂lāmāt al-Markazi, Basic Facts about the Southern Provinces of the Sudan (Khartoum: Central Office of Information, 1964).Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Fears about the government's Islamism also escalated among some southerners, following the nationalization of Christian mission schools in the late 1950s and expulsion of Christian missionaries from the south after 1962: Ruay, Deng D. Akol, The Politics of Two Sudans: The South and the North, 1821–1969 (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1994), 57–58, 97–103.Google Scholar Ruay joined the SPLM/SPLA in 1986. As he explains in the Preface, he wrote the book primarily for Southern Sudanese “freedom fighters.”