Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese-born writer, broadcaster and award-winning social advocate. A former mechanical engineer, Yassmin has published seven books, most recently the literary novel At Sea. She is a core writer on British continuing drama  Emmerdale, and her original drama series, Cruise Control, is in development with the BBC. The creator of eyesonsudan.net and adviser on the sudandigitalarchive.com, Yassmin is dedicated to the civilian movement in Sudan and the celebration and amplification of Sudanese culture. In all her work, Yassmin is an advocate for transformative justice and a fairer, safer world for all.

Articles

The keepers of history

My name holds my history. That is to say, my name carries my father’s name, his father’s name and the father before him, seven generations back. My name allows us to time-travel several hundred years; these men kept alive through me. When I enter Sudan or Egypt, I am asked for at least the first four of these names for identification. My name places me in the context of the people I descend from, as a way to pinpoint to whom I belong.

In truth, my name holds one history. Yes, it is mine, but it is only a single, patriarchal version, rendering women invisible to such an extent that in its next iteration, I would be erased entirely. What can truly be gleaned from names shorn of context? My name is an archive that belongs to me, that defines me, but over which I have no curatorial power. I rankle at this, yet I understand this dynamic is the norm rather than an exception. The archive is a site of political struggle, whether in a name or national institution, speaking to who is remembered and who decides what is worth remembering.

We will never be modern

Non-fictionMy Instagram feed, an information-stream cosplaying as a hyper-relevant town square, has undergone a radical transformation in the past few years. Whereas once that endless deluge teemed with benign yet revealing snapshots of friends moving through the motions and milestones of life – brunches, holidays, weddings and pregnancies – today’s experience is far removed.

To the moon

Memoir I’D LIKE TO believe that I wasn’t jumping on the bandwagon. But don’t we all tell ourselves little white lies to keep our self-worth intact? It was November 2017. I was jolted awake by the rousing sound of a deliciously...

A little too close to the sun

MemoirWhen this essay was reprinted on The Guardian website on 6 July 2017, the writer added the short introduction below in order to give the piece context. We've reproduced it here in order to illustrate the extremity of her...

On the rigs

MemoirThe environment is unapologetically male. It is also isolated and basic: all everyone does is sleep-eat-work. I found it relatively easy to acclimatise given my studies and interests, but I underestimated the impact that being the only woman for most of my time, in a group of between twenty and sixty men, would have on me. I found it more challenging than I expected to navigate work/life nuances on the rigs. There are not many other places in the world where a woman is made more aware of her gender: where you must learn to find the balance as a woman in such an overwhelmingly male world.

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