Current estimates indicate the presence of anywhere between 20,000 and 250,000 Sudanese refugees in Egypt. The great discrepancy in figures, a result of contradictory new reports, is an important demonstration of the way the refugee situation in Cairo is perceived by various interest groups, many of whom continue to underestimate the problems faced by the Sudanese community in Egypt.

This collection of oral narratives gives voice to the everyday lives and unique struggles of a small group of refugees displaced to Egypt, in an attempt to identify their problems frequently overlooked by the media. Compiled through a series of interviews conducted by students at the American University in Cairo, the narratives are complemented by a short history of Sudanese refugees in Egypt and a theoretical study of racism against the Sudanese in the country.

NORA ELTAHAWY is a graduate of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin where she plans to specialize in the literature of minorities and Arab-American fiction.

BROOKE COMER is a fiction writer and journalist who teaches writing at the American University in Cairo. She has contributed to The New York Times, New York Magazine, and The Los Angeles Times.

AMANI ELSHIMI is director of community-based learning and senior lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo.