Sweetness in the Belly

Like Brick Laneand The Kite Runner, Camilla Gibb’s widely praised new novel is a poignant and intensely atmospheric look beyond the stereotypes of Islam. After her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco. As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia, where she teaches Qur’an to children and falls in love with an idealistic doctor. But even swathed in a traditional headscarf, Lilly can’t escape being marked as a foreigner. Forced to flee Ethiopia for England, she must once again confront the riddle of who she is and where she belongs.

Camilla Gibb conducted fieldwork in Ethiopia for her Ph.D. in social anthropology from Oxford. She is the author of two previous novels, Mouthing the Words and The Petty Details of So-and-So-'s Life.