The Nuer are a cattle herding people who live along the Nile. Although only a half million in population, they were made world famous by anthropologist E. Evans Pritchard’s classic ‘The Nuer.’ Song is the art form most suited to their harsh climate and semi-nomadic existence. Cleaned the Crocodile’s Teeth was translated by Terese Svoboda, who collected and transcribed them in the Sudan with the aid of a PEN/Columbia Fellowship. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for the completion of the project. However, Cleaned the Crocodile’s Teeth is more than just the translation of these songs. Its linking narrative, which chronicles Svoboda’s experiences and places the songs in their proper contexts, takes us along on the translator’s sometimes difficult journey and gives us an even deeper glimpse into the often hard, but never hopeless lives of the Nuer.
