Egyptian satire’s Sudanese stereotypes predated and survived the Mahdist rising.

Evidence

From the early 1870 to 1872, when he was writing his short plays in colloquial Arabic and having them performed, through his first issues of Abü Nazzara Zarqa, published from 1875 to 1878, Sanü`a’s writings incorporated a tradition of cultural stereotypes about Nubians and Sudanese that had long been found in Egyptian popular entertainment.Was he questioning these stereotypes by reflecting them so boldly in these early dramas? Or was he reinforcing them? Did the political turbulence of the Mahdïya truly cause him to reassess the situation in the Sudan and perhaps the awareness of the Sudanese around him, thus enabling him to cast these old caricatures in new roles? — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 335

Categorization

• QUESTION: Unresolved in the text itself: was Sanü`a reinforcing or subverting the stereotype, and is the shift causal or merely opportunistic?