“Under the black cotton soil”, a fiction about humanitarians in South Sudan

In Sous le sol de coton noir, a group of friends engaged in humanitarian work end up leaving following a tragedy in southern Sudan where they are intervening. The book takes its title from the color of the extremely clayey soil of the Upper Nile area. “It’s a very black, carbonaceous land, which is really not very welcoming and, in the rainy season, it’s a real slush”, describes the author.

He himself is engaged in humanitarian work and has traveled to several countries including South Sudan. “It’s a country that has made a strong impression on me,” explains Paul Duke, who has been there twice. “I followed the same populations of the ethnic group Shillukwho is a quite a minority group in the country, but historic. I saw that these people had been victims of the same violence for many years and, in the context of the civil war, in South Sudan, between 2013 and 2018, these people were always pushed further and further away”, specifies the guest of 11 p.m. Tuesday, February 1.