On 15 April 2023, a war broke out in Sudan, creating one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with 12 to 14 million people displaced. Millions had to leave behind their homes, cars, and other valuables – important documents, clothes, photographs, and cherished memories, all lost.
Everybody has a story to tell about what they lost — or were forced to leave behind — because of the war. In her memoir Mourning Air: A Memoir of Sudden Loss, 34-year-old Sudanese-American positive psychology practitioner and first-time author Leena Magdi reflects on the sudden death of her brother and the loss of her home amid the war in Sudan.
Published on 15 April 2025, the 160-page English-language book features poetry, prose, and storytelling as Magdi lays bare the intricacies of her path along grief’s journey and becoming acquainted with some of grief’s many faces. “Writing has always been a source of relief for me and I’ve always wanted to become a writer. When we first got to Egypt, I remember feeling so overwhelmed with emotion and thinking, ‘I can only get this out on paper, and I know there are so many other people feeling the same.’ I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to write but I knew that I needed to share it,” she said, explaining the inspiration behind her debut book.
After the war broke out in Sudan, Magdi and her family, like at least 1.5 million other Sudanese, fled to Cairo, Egypt, where she is currently based. “We chose to come to Egypt because at the time it was, relatively speaking, easily accessible. We were traveling with our extended family. Myself, my sisters, a lot of aunts and cousins, both of my grandmothers, one of which passed away on the bus before we made it to Egypt. The trip was difficult, to say the least, as was everyone’s journey who left. Egypt was the place we felt we could all get to go together. And it’s been our new home, ever since,” she said.
As Magdi and her large family fled Sudan, she lost more than just her home — she lost her brother Mohamed for a second time, as he was buried there. “It felt like losing him all over again. But it made me face the reality that the soul isn’t something that is bound to a specific place. I can feel him everywhere now,” said Magdi.
Magdi lost her brother, 21-year-old Mohamed, who she fondly calls Hamoodi, in Khartoum on 11 August 2022. He was fatally shot outside Nile Club by “an armed national security officer dressed in plain clothing,” as Magdi described in her book.
At the time, Mohamed was on holiday in Sudan, visiting family and friends. He was based in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was studying Computation and Cognition (Course 6-9) at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His death deeply shook Sudanese communities around the world, as well as the Boston community, and was covered by both local and international media. MIT honoured his memory with a eulogy, prayer service, memorial event, and poetry night, and a mural dedicated to his life was placed on campus.
“I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about that moment. There is a very clear ‘before’ and ‘after’ in our family with that moment as the pivotal turning point. The ‘before’ felt like a much simpler time, like we were living life unaware of how close death really is. The ‘after,’ is entirely different. We don’t waste time on silly matters, we have much more grace with ourselves, with others, with each other. There is a constant knowing that this life isn’t our home but that we are going home someday and we will see Hamoodi again Inshallah, and so everything we do, we do to prepare for that homecoming. Strangely enough, I feel we have more presence in each day, with an equal amount of looking ahead to something beyond this dunya,” Magdi said.
Following Mohamed’s death, the Magdi family and their close friends created a scholarship fund to honour him and support students who wish to study STEM and/ or the arts in the US. “We’re in our third year now, Alhamdulilah and we’re still accepting applications (deadline is 14 Dec 2025) as well as donations,” Magdi said. Anyone interested in applying or donating, visit bold.org/funds/mohamed-magdi-taha-memorial-scholarship-fund
Before moving to Sudan in 2013, the American-Sudanese Magdi family was based in California in the Bay Area, the US. Magdi studied Economics and Humanities at San José State University and later received her Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
“I spent most of my life outside of Sudan, and only started to build a relationship with the country and culture in my adult life. Needless to say, that doesn’t come very easy. Anyone who’s grown up outside of their home country will attest to that uneasy feeling of ‘being home but not home.’ That’s how Sudan was for me – it was home, but I didn’t feel like I really belonged. After Hamoodi was killed, and buried there, Sudan started to feel like the only place that could be home,” Magdi explained.
Mohamed’s legacy continues whether through the scholarship fund and Magdi’s book. Mourning Air found healing in her book, and she wishes it to be the same for those who read it. “I would like it to be whatever the reader needs it to be in that moment. And that could change. The experience of grief changes, and it changes us, so it’s a lot of things: that they are not alone in their grief, that any expression of grief is okay, that there are spaces to have conversations about grief and loss, that if there aren’t any spaces to have these conversations around them then maybe they can create them, that they have innate strengths within them that were created to support them in every circumstance – even the darkest,” she explained.
Magdi’s debut book might not be the last. “I definitely want to keep writing but I’m not entirely sure what I want to write about. Whatever it is though, it’ll probably be something that relates to positive psychology,” she said. She is now continuing her professional development through the Counselor Training Center in the field of University Counseling in International Schools. She currently works as a Positive Psychology Practitioner in the Educational Consultancy field with high school students.
Mourning Air: A Memoir of Sudden Loss is available at the following:
- The Dreamwork Collective https://thedreamworkcollective.store/products/mourningair
- Amazon
The Audio Book is available on Apple Audio.
The book will also be available in the following locations:
- UAE – Kinokuniya and Magrudys
- USA – Barnes & Nobles
- UK – Waterstones
- Canada – Indigo
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Ola Diab is the new founder and editor of 500 Words Magazine, and the deputy editor of Marhaba Information Guide, Qatar’s premier information guide. Based in Qatar, the Sudanese journalist graduated from Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and has since built a successful career in the print and digital media industry in Qatar. Find her on X (formerly Twitter) @therealoladiab or on LinkedIn.
