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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator not want Mustafa to become for him?

2. What was the name of the college Mustafa went to in the Sudan?

3. Which gift does Mustafa bring the narrator when he visits his house?

4. Who did Wad want to marry?

5. When were rooms added to the grandfather's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Mustafa do after he was released from prison?

2. How do the narrator and Mustafa first meet and what do they learn about each other?

3. What did the narrator's companion on the train in Khartoum tell him about Mustafa and how did he react to this information?

4. What do you know about Mustafa's family and how did that affect him?

5. What did you learn about Mustafa's trial in the pages 19-44?

6. How can you tell that the village life seems unchanged to the narrator when he gets back after all those years?

7. What happened on the train one day, when the narrator works at the Department of Education in Khartoum?

8. What does Mustafa have to do with the topic of mixed marriages?

9. What did the narrator do after Mustafa told him his story?

10. What do you know about the narrator's grandfather as a person?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When the narrator returns to his Sudanese village, after an absence of seven years, everybody is happy about this event. How do you know this? How is the narrator's happiness to be back in the village expressed in the book? How do you know his family and friends are happy he is back? Describe their actions and feelings. Use evidence from the book. Give a few other examples of how happiness can be expressed in literature.

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the book, a lot of people talk about Mustafa to the narrator. Summarize the information the narrator collects about Mustafa. Who does the narrator meet that talks to him about Mustafa? In which circumstances does this happen? What does the narrator learn about Mustafa? What is being said? How does he react to this information? What is said about Mustafa that is contradictory with the narrator's information? Who, of all these people with information, actually met Mustafa in person? Why do you think all these people talk about Mustafa and praise him? How do you think the narrator feels about this?

Essay Topic 3

When Mustafa was a child, a man on horseback appeared. How does this event change Mustafa's life? How did he react to this man? What were the consequences? How did this man influence Mustafa? How was Mustafa different from the other children? Describe the meeting between the man on the horse and Mustafa and relate it to Mustafa's further childhood and adulthood.

(see the answer keys)

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