The Orchard of Lost Souls: A Novel

About this book

From one of Grantas Best of Young British Novelists a stunning novel illuminating Somalias 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.