This is a story of 8-year-old Lilly whose hippy, Irish parents were suddenly killed in Morocco, North Africa and raised by a Muslim cleric. Owing to the political unrest in Morocco in 1969, she makes a pilgrimage to Harar, the ancient city in Eastern Ethiopia where she begins to teach the Koran to local children and rises in love with a revolutionary medical doctor. Camilla Gibb writes from the heart. Sweetness in the Belly is about love. It is about immigration, war and poverty. It is about Ethiopians. The story bounces between Harar, Ethiopia, in the 70s, and London, England, in the 80s and early 90s. Gibb beautifully weaves time and politics and culture and race and faith together with the power of these magical words.

posted Oct 16, 2006 at 2:54PM

 Add a Comment