Nadifa Mohamed Book order (chronological)

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, petty criminal. He is a smooth-talker with rakish charm and an eye for a good game. He is many things, but he is not a murderer. So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. Since his Welsh wife Laura kicked him out for racking up debts he has wandered the streets more often, and there are witnesses who allegedly saw him enter the shop that night. But Mahmood has escaped worse scrapes, and he is innocent in this country where justice is served. Love lends him immunity too: the fierce love of Laura, who forgives his gambling in a heartbeat, and his children

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. Chosen as one of the 15 Best Works of Fiction by Black Authors in 2014 by The Root

"Dječak crne mambe" roman je povijesne tematike somalsko-britanske autorice Nadife Mohamed. Riječ je o poluautobiografskom zapisu života Nadifina oca u Jemenu 30-ih i 40-ih godina 20. stoljeća za perioda kolonizacije. Priča počinje na ulicama Adena, u sparno ljeto 1935. Džami je deset godina, odrastao je u sirotinjskoj četvrti starog grada učeći kako preživjeti među uličnim deranima i lučkim skitnicama. Kada izgubi majku, preživjeti može jedino ako nađe oca, koji je nestao prije mnogo godina. I tako počinje epsko putovanje pješice, na devi, u kamionu i vlaku, kroz ratom razdiranu Eritreju i Sudan do Egipta, Palestine te naposljetku ledenog kraljevstva Britanije o kojem je Džama čuo u Jemenu. Priča o putovanju jednog dječaka istodobno je i pripovijest o tome kako se Drugi svjetski rat odrazio na Afriku i njezine ljude, pripovijest o progonstvu i preživljavanju, živopisna priča o ljubavi, prijateljstvu i bezgraničnoj nadi. MV Info

Jama is a half-feral child scavenging in the streets of a great seaport. After his mother dies, Jama decides to search for his never-seen father. So begins Jama's extraordinary journey of more than a thousand miles north all the way to Egypt.