For a culture that spends most of its free time arguing about progress, you’d assume we’d be a little more sentimental about Labour Day—now that, for example, we’ve all generally agreed to frown upon child labour and all.

The Economist’s latest feature series on Sudan is very much worth your time.

Here’s a passage from Egypt’s own Yusuf Idris, in a short story entitled, “All on a Summer’s Night,” that I found in Penguin’s somewhat recent english collection, The Cheapest Nights (2020), that gives Gatsby a great run for his new money:

Once more we found ourselves roaming, back on the same road that saw us coming, driven in spite of ourselves. We were limping and groaning and leaning on one another. Our thoughts were dwelling on the coming dawn, rising suddenly, giving shape to the earth, with grief and care in its folds. And the harsh inexorable day loomed ahead like a huge monster, bigger than the sun.