Moving Away from Accuracy‪.‬

Leila Aboulela presents herself and is left feeling ambivalent about the complications of such a discourse. Using extracts from her published writings and relating them to personal incidents, the writer describes some of the difficulties of her move from Sudan to Scotland. She finds encouragement in the Sufi saying, "Travel away from home and the difficulties will be a medicine for your ego's badness, you will return softer and wiser." And she finds a new life as a writer. She discusses some of the challenges she has faced in writing autobiography (accuracy, context, what to stress and what to leave out) and concludes that for her, writing fiction offers more freedom and comes more naturally. It is better, she concludes, to present a specific story, a smoothed-out model. **********