The last three decades have witnessed the publication of numerous prison memoirs by former political prisoners in Sudan. Although all these Sudanese prison memoirs are works of writing alone, the Prison Notebook of Ibrahim El-Salahi is one conspicuous exception. He is a pioneer modernist painter and visionary Sudanese intellectual who endured an extended period of incarceration in the mid-1970s during the regime of military dictator Gaafar Nimeiri (1969-85).

This publication presents El-Salahi’s series of delicate, visually intriguing pen-and-ink drawings in a sketchbook during his house arrest in 1976, after his release from Khartoum’s infamous Kober (Cooper) prison.

This book is published by Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) in association with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; and edited by Dr. Salah M. Hassan (Goldwin Smith Professor and Director, Institute for Comparative Modernities, Cornell University and academic advisor to The Africa Institute).