This story features Eddie Ahmad’s queer retelling of Season of Migration to the North. The title of the story is taken from Tayeb Salih’s classic post-colonial novel of the same name, first published in 1966, which was briefly banned within Sudan for its frank depiction of sex and was later a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Eddie’s version gorgeously captures his unexpected journey from Sudan to Norway after he co-hosted a Khartoum-based fashion show in the 2010s. The fashion show was deemed ‘amoral’ under military-ruled Sudan for featuring male and female models walking together and because some men were thought to be “visibly queer” for wearing eyeliner. The story features image stills from the fashion show, which was raided by the police shortly after it concluded. Eddie relocated following a series of related obstacles in Sudan, and Norway has come with its own challenges but eventual delights. The images and Eddie’s narration also features in Lars Laumann’s film by the same name.
Khartoum, March 2nd, 2010
I have to tried get my lower lip pierced for two weeks now. They only make ear piercings for women with a gun- like machine. Hassna and I went into a pharmacy today, asking to borrow the gun. Hassna just took the gun and stuck it in my mouth.
I’m pretty happy about how it came out. Especially because it was so quick and cheeky. Even though the stud is too small.
I have to ask Monty to send me a bigger one from the States.
Khartoum, December 19th, 2010
It’s a few days before the fashion show. I’m nervous that something could happen. I’m quite a shy person. I don’t like to be in the spotlight. But then I also do. I know it’s contradictive.
We have rehearsed several times at the Goethe Institute. The show will have five parts. I will only be in two. I’m wearing clothes from Diesel; holding a basketball. I never played basketball. I always hated sports. I like the suit better.
The other day we went to Khloud Kibeda’s atelier, I told her about the idea. And she agreed to participate. I’m filled with excitement and nervousness.
Khartoum, December 22nd 2010
It’s the day before the fashion show. We got a permit from the police to have a party. You need to do this for any party in Sudan. The permission is until eleven which is when all parties have to end. The show will last for a few hours so we will start at eight. After that we’ll have a dance party for an hour or so.
Khartoum, December 26th, 2010
Been released from jail. I was bailed out by my family. It was a horrible experience. It’s too difficult to write about. I have to report back to the police in a few days.
Khartoum, December 27th, 2010
We had two security guards from the police at the fashion show. You can get that when you apply for permission. Two minutes after eleven several other policemen arrived and raided the place. They had surrounded the building.
The police separated us into two groups. The boys who they thought looked gay, and the ones that did not. They arrested us along with the girls, who the police thought they looked immoral. They sent the other people home. There was panic. Miriam swallowed her tongue and Fatima fainted, as did several others. They already knew all the participants in the show. They must have followed us on Facebook.
Khartoum, December 28th, 2012
Leaving the house I have always lived in; leaving for Europe soon. I will not see this place in a long time. Maybe I will be able to meet my mother in Cairo some day...
Vadsø, February 15th, 2013
Just arrived in the Arctic, Norway. It’s a refugee camp. It is the first time to live in a village. It’s a small place with four thousand people. They don’t have bus or transport. You take the ferry to the next village Kirkenes. The camp is the biggest in North Scandinavia. There is a few thousand of us, making up half of the village.
The main building is one out of many that make up the camp, and it was previously a hospital. I live in a smaller wooden house by the water. I know it sounds idyllic, but it’s not really. The conditions of living is basic. Yesterday the heating did not work. I learned that you truly need that in a cold country.
The closest person to me on Grindr is in Russia. 400 kilometers away.
Vadsø, February 29th, 2013
It is exotic. Never seen the tundra before. I know the desert. No trees; white mountains. I got to know a few people here. One of them is Hamid. He is the first immigrant in the village. The first black man. He arrived six or seven years ago. He is from Sudan as well. He is married to a local girl; Norwegian. And he works in the kommune, the council.
Hamid came to the camp to hang with us the other day. He has advice on how to get integrated into society. Talking about his own experience of arriving in the village, he told me if you want to get to know people – you have to be seen. He would go to the local bar every weekend. You have to dress up good. Make yourself visible. Flashy colors. Red, yellow, bright green. Good brands. You have to be seen from far away.
No one else dresses like that here, I think. So he would go to the bar every Saturday and buy a beer. He does not drink alcohol though. But his advice was to just sit there, with his beer. Talk to people and gradually they
would learn to accept him.
This approach is also what the Englishman Quentin Crisp talks about. He said: «Do not conform to society, let society conform around you.»
Vadsø, March 12th, 2013
I started reading a good book. It’s called The Diaries of Ruth Maier. It’s about a young Austrian girl that came here as a refugee in the 1940s. The diaries starts before she came to Norway. She dreams about being an actress or a writer, living in middle class Vienna.
Vadsø, March 27th, 2013
I’m looking forward to move to Oslo. There is more people there, and I miss public transport. Ruth Maier lived several places in Norway. In Oslo, she started working as a model, where she met a girl called Gunvor Hofmo and I think that they were falling in love.
Two girls in love in Norway during war – what is more romantic? Her experience of coming to Norway is different from mine. Norway was a poor country then. But at least she did not have to live in Finnmark. She complains about there being no Coca Cola or sugar.
I was not so nervous about my asylum application. My case is well documented. Got my answer in one day. I brought a shopping bag with newspaper clippings from the trial that lasted six months. There is also my LGBT activism that finally made me have to leave. But I’m more fortunate than most. For other people it is not easy to get a positive answer. In some cases the government don’t believe they are gay.
I guess Ruth Maier conformed to Norway. She had a job and a girlfriend, and she stayed with a Norwegian family. It seems that she so quickly came to like Norway. She tells about hearing the song: Vi elsker, vi elsker. She talk about how the song moved her and how she felt love to the country. She did not have the same feelings for Austria. And she thought that the Norwegians where cute – almost naive – in their nationalism.
Ruth writes about her sexuality. She had a nightmare. There was blood. She was seeing her father and her family on a train. She is trying to analyze it. And she wrote that the blood represented her sexuality, and her previous sexual experience with a guy. She says she is not satisfied with the male. She talks about how she feels for women, but not directly of the concept “gay”. It is a western concept, and I don’t know if “gay” had been born in Europe at Ruth’s and Gunvor’s time.
Oslo, April 16th, 2015
Moved into a 18m2 studio apartment in Oslo. I live and work in the same street so it only takes me a few minutes to go to work. I’m interning in an architect’s office. There are different kinds of projects at the office, recently one is a project of a kindergarten close to Kristiansand. And a sign project for the agricultural school outside Oslo. It is different from my old job in Sudan where I was a teaching assistant in the architecture school.
Oslo, September, 2015
I’m going to New York for a study trip with work in November. It was so cold last time I was there. Then I was on an LGBTQI activist conference. I was traveling with five other lesbian friends so I had to go to Victoria’s Secret three times and hang out in lesbian bars. It’s going to be nice to do something other than that. Like take an architecture tour of Manhattan.
Oslo, June 15th, 2015
I’m tired of being angry. I don’t want to be angry all the time. Anger is consuming energy. I don’t want to be perceived as an angry person. I just want to be a normal person, and I don’t think that is a lot to ask.
Anger is my treasure also. I remember one of the first times that racism really affected me. I felt marginalized and discriminated against. A guy sent me an online message and it was really cruel. I felt angry and pissed. Later I was in the gym running and I felt like my brain was going to explode. For three days I could not sleep. Anger can destroy you from the inside.
But I also find anger can be used as motivation – for myself and for my activism. Activism is something that I love, because I think it can make a change.
If you are in a nightclub for example; when a stranger is grabbing your ass, I feel afraid of being angry. Because I feel I have to behave differently as I am an immigrant. Because I don’t want to be the angry black man. I just want to be myself.
Oslo, August 1st, 2015
First day in my job. I had an internship for three months. And now they hired me. It was the happiest day of my life, or at least it was a weird and emotional one. I have been looking for a job for a long time and finally I got one as an architect.
Oslo, August 12th, 2015
I miss having a boyfriend. It’s hard to find one. But it’s been a great summer.
The gay community is closed for people of color. Many stay away from it because of racism. In Norway, this is the place where I have experienced the most racism. I cannot have a visit to a club, or bar, or Grindr for that matter without having to be reminded that I don’t belong here. Because I am different.
Often it comes with good intentions, like “you look good for a black man”. Or “I’m normally not into black guys but you are handsome”. Or the size of the penis.
Oslo, June 21st, 2015
I’m worried and concerned about Islamophobia. A few weeks ago there was a debate in Bergen during the gay pride. The topic was homosexuality and Islam. They had invited racist people from the right wing party and their argument was that Islam is homophobic. This is producing hate in the gay community towards muslims. Europe is already hard for Muslims – especially gay Muslims. This remind me that history repeats itself. This same thing happened 70 years ago when the Jews where in the position that Muslims are in now.
I wish sometimes that I was religious, so that I could build a solid argument in this topic. ...
I want to go home to the humans (1946)
I want to gaze towards the stars
over the night-shining sea
that is singing, singing:
Wonderful is the night,
wonderful is the day, not one of them will die!
I want to go home to the humans – like a blind man
is transilluminated in the dark
by sorrow ́s starlight
/Gunvor Hofmo
This story features Eddie Ahmad’s queer retelling of Season of Migration to the North. The title of the story is taken from Tayeb Salih’s classic post-colonial novel of the same name, first published in 1966, which was briefly banned within Sudan for its frank depiction of sex and was later a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Eddie’s version gorgeously captures his unexpected journey from Sudan to Norway after he co-hosted a Khartoum-based fashion show in the 2010s. The fashion show was deemed ‘amoral’ under military-ruled Sudan for featuring male and female models walking together and because some men were thought to be “visibly queer” for wearing eyeliner. The story features image stills from the fashion show, which was raided by the police shortly after it concluded. Eddie relocated following a series of related obstacles in Sudan, and Norway has come with its own challenges but eventual delights. The images and Eddie’s narration also features in Lars Laumann’s film by the same name.
Khartoum, March 2nd, 2010
I have to tried get my lower lip pierced for two weeks now. They only make ear piercings for women with a gun- like machine. Hassna and I went into a pharmacy today, asking to borrow the gun. Hassna just took the gun and stuck it in my mouth.
I’m pretty happy about how it came out. Especially because it was so quick and cheeky. Even though the stud is too small.
I have to ask Monty to send me a bigger one from the States.
Khartoum, December 19th, 2010
It’s a few days before the fashion show. I’m nervous that something could happen. I’m quite a shy person. I don’t like to be in the spotlight. But then I also do. I know it’s contradictive.
We have rehearsed several times at the Goethe Institute. The show will have five parts. I will only be in two. I’m wearing clothes from Diesel; holding a basketball. I never played basketball. I always hated sports. I like the suit better.
The other day we went to Khloud Kibeda’s atelier, I told her about the idea. And she agreed to participate. I’m filled with excitement and nervousness.
Khartoum, December 22nd 2010
It’s the day before the fashion show. We got a permit from the police to have a party. You need to do this for any party in Sudan. The permission is until eleven which is when all parties have to end. The show will last for a few hours so we will start at eight. After that we’ll have a dance party for an hour or so.
Khartoum, December 26th, 2010
Been released from jail. I was bailed out by my family. It was a horrible experience. It’s too difficult to write about. I have to report back to the police in a few days.
Khartoum, December 27th, 2010
We had two security guards from the police at the fashion show. You can get that when you apply for permission. Two minutes after eleven several other policemen arrived and raided the place. They had surrounded the building.
The police separated us into two groups. The boys who they thought looked gay, and the ones that did not. They arrested us along with the girls, who the police thought they looked immoral. They sent the other people home. There was panic. Miriam swallowed her tongue and Fatima fainted, as did several others. They already knew all the participants in the show. They must have followed us on Facebook.
Khartoum, December 28th, 2012
Leaving the house I have always lived in; leaving for Europe soon. I will not see this place in a long time. Maybe I will be able to meet my mother in Cairo some day...
Vadsø, February 15th, 2013
Just arrived in the Arctic, Norway. It’s a refugee camp. It is the first time to live in a village. It’s a small place with four thousand people. They don’t have bus or transport. You take the ferry to the next village Kirkenes. The camp is the biggest in North Scandinavia. There is a few thousand of us, making up half of the village.
The main building is one out of many that make up the camp, and it was previously a hospital. I live in a smaller wooden house by the water. I know it sounds idyllic, but it’s not really. The conditions of living is basic. Yesterday the heating did not work. I learned that you truly need that in a cold country.
The closest person to me on Grindr is in Russia. 400 kilometers away.
Vadsø, February 29th, 2013
It is exotic. Never seen the tundra before. I know the desert. No trees; white mountains. I got to know a few people here. One of them is Hamid. He is the first immigrant in the village. The first black man. He arrived six or seven years ago. He is from Sudan as well. He is married to a local girl; Norwegian. And he works in the kommune, the council.
Hamid came to the camp to hang with us the other day. He has advice on how to get integrated into society. Talking about his own experience of arriving in the village, he told me if you want to get to know people – you have to be seen. He would go to the local bar every weekend. You have to dress up good. Make yourself visible. Flashy colors. Red, yellow, bright green. Good brands. You have to be seen from far away.
No one else dresses like that here, I think. So he would go to the bar every Saturday and buy a beer. He does not drink alcohol though. But his advice was to just sit there, with his beer. Talk to people and gradually they
would learn to accept him.
This approach is also what the Englishman Quentin Crisp talks about. He said: «Do not conform to society, let society conform around you.»
Vadsø, March 12th, 2013
I started reading a good book. It’s called The Diaries of Ruth Maier. It’s about a young Austrian girl that came here as a refugee in the 1940s. The diaries starts before she came to Norway. She dreams about being an actress or a writer, living in middle class Vienna.
Vadsø, March 27th, 2013
I’m looking forward to move to Oslo. There is more people there, and I miss public transport. Ruth Maier lived several places in Norway. In Oslo, she started working as a model, where she met a girl called Gunvor Hofmo and I think that they were falling in love.
Two girls in love in Norway during war – what is more romantic? Her experience of coming to Norway is different from mine. Norway was a poor country then. But at least she did not have to live in Finnmark. She complains about there being no Coca Cola or sugar.
I was not so nervous about my asylum application. My case is well documented. Got my answer in one day. I brought a shopping bag with newspaper clippings from the trial that lasted six months. There is also my LGBT activism that finally made me have to leave. But I’m more fortunate than most. For other people it is not easy to get a positive answer. In some cases the government don’t believe they are gay.
I guess Ruth Maier conformed to Norway. She had a job and a girlfriend, and she stayed with a Norwegian family. It seems that she so quickly came to like Norway. She tells about hearing the song: Vi elsker, vi elsker. She talk about how the song moved her and how she felt love to the country. She did not have the same feelings for Austria. And she thought that the Norwegians where cute – almost naive – in their nationalism.
Ruth writes about her sexuality. She had a nightmare. There was blood. She was seeing her father and her family on a train. She is trying to analyze it. And she wrote that the blood represented her sexuality, and her previous sexual experience with a guy. She says she is not satisfied with the male. She talks about how she feels for women, but not directly of the concept “gay”. It is a western concept, and I don’t know if “gay” had been born in Europe at Ruth’s and Gunvor’s time.
Oslo, April 16th, 2015
Moved into a 18m2 studio apartment in Oslo. I live and work in the same street so it only takes me a few minutes to go to work. I’m interning in an architect’s office. There are different kinds of projects at the office, recently one is a project of a kindergarten close to Kristiansand. And a sign project for the agricultural school outside Oslo. It is different from my old job in Sudan where I was a teaching assistant in the architecture school.
Oslo, September, 2015
I’m going to New York for a study trip with work in November. It was so cold last time I was there. Then I was on an LGBTQI activist conference. I was traveling with five other lesbian friends so I had to go to Victoria’s Secret three times and hang out in lesbian bars. It’s going to be nice to do something other than that. Like take an architecture tour of Manhattan.
Oslo, June 15th, 2015
I’m tired of being angry. I don’t want to be angry all the time. Anger is consuming energy. I don’t want to be perceived as an angry person. I just want to be a normal person, and I don’t think that is a lot to ask.
Anger is my treasure also. I remember one of the first times that racism really affected me. I felt marginalized and discriminated against. A guy sent me an online message and it was really cruel. I felt angry and pissed. Later I was in the gym running and I felt like my brain was going to explode. For three days I could not sleep. Anger can destroy you from the inside.
But I also find anger can be used as motivation – for myself and for my activism. Activism is something that I love, because I think it can make a change.
If you are in a nightclub for example; when a stranger is grabbing your ass, I feel afraid of being angry. Because I feel I have to behave differently as I am an immigrant. Because I don’t want to be the angry black man. I just want to be myself.
Oslo, August 1st, 2015
First day in my job. I had an internship for three months. And now they hired me. It was the happiest day of my life, or at least it was a weird and emotional one. I have been looking for a job for a long time and finally I got one as an architect.
Oslo, August 12th, 2015
I miss having a boyfriend. It’s hard to find one. But it’s been a great summer.
The gay community is closed for people of color. Many stay away from it because of racism. In Norway, this is the place where I have experienced the most racism. I cannot have a visit to a club, or bar, or Grindr for that matter without having to be reminded that I don’t belong here. Because I am different.
Often it comes with good intentions, like “you look good for a black man”. Or “I’m normally not into black guys but you are handsome”. Or the size of the penis.
Oslo, June 21st, 2015
I’m worried and concerned about Islamophobia. A few weeks ago there was a debate in Bergen during the gay pride. The topic was homosexuality and Islam. They had invited racist people from the right wing party and their argument was that Islam is homophobic. This is producing hate in the gay community towards muslims. Europe is already hard for Muslims – especially gay Muslims. This remind me that history repeats itself. This same thing happened 70 years ago when the Jews where in the position that Muslims are in now.
I wish sometimes that I was religious, so that I could build a solid argument in this topic. ...
I want to go home to the humans (1946)
I want to gaze towards the stars
over the night-shining sea
that is singing, singing:
Wonderful is the night,
wonderful is the day, not one of them will die!
I want to go home to the humans – like a blind man
is transilluminated in the dark
by sorrow ́s starlight
/Gunvor Hofmo
