
The fall of Somalia in the late 1980s is witnessed firsthand by three women in the province of Hargeisa, including Deqo, who left a refugee existence for city security; widow Kawsar, who has been brutalized by the police; and Filsan, a young soldier who helps suppress the growing rebellion. 35,000 first printing.
McMillan Palgrave
From one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, a stunning novel illuminating Somalia's tragic civil war
It is 1987 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds, but still the dictatorship remains secure.
Soon, through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall.
Nine-year-old Deqo has left the vast refugee camp where she was born, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes.
Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined to her bed after a savage beating in the local police station.
Filsan, a young female soldier, has moved from Mogadishu to suppress the rebellion growing in the north.
As the country is unraveled by a civil war that will shock the world, the fates of these three women are twisted irrevocably together.
Nadifa Mohamed was born in Hargeisa and was exiled before the outbreak of war. In The Orchard of Lost Souls, she returns to Hargeisa in her imagination. Intimate, frank, brimming with beauty and fierce love, this novel is an unforgettable account of ordinary lives lived in extraordinary times.
Baker
& Taylor
The fall of Somalia in the late 1980s is witnessed firsthand by three women in the province of Hargeisa, including Deqo, who left a refugee existence for city security; widow Kawsar, who has been brutalized by the police; and Filsan, a young soldier who helps suppress the growing rebellion.
"The Orchard of Lost Souls takes place in Hargeisa in 1987, and charts the descent of Somalia into civil war through the entwined lives of three women"--


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Add a CommentWar is the great leveler, bringing together 3 women from different social strata. They must band together in order to survive.
one of the best books I've read; about 3 women in Somalia, very realistic and raw but characters brought together so well; great insight into the war and how it affected people in that country. I will definitely be getting her earlier story out Black Mamba Boy, if this one is anything to go by...