Ibrahim El-Salahi - Prison Notebook

"The Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi was arrested in September 1975 and held without trial for six months in Khartoum's notorious Kober Prison, wrongfully accused of involvement in an anti-government coup. In the weeks of house arrest that followed his release, the pioneering modernist artist, intellectual, and teacher produced his Prison Notebook. Modest in scale but immeasurable in impact, this sketchbook of masterful pen-and-ink drawings and virtuoso prose and poetry in Arabic served both to exorcise and document his experience behind bars."

This Paperback version comprises a facsimile of the Prison Notebook (recently acquired by MoMA); an English translation of its prose; a contextualizing essay by art historian Salah Hassan that addresses the social and political milieu in which it was produced; and contemporary commentary by the artist.