SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY

When her British-Irish expatriate parents are murdered in Tangier, 8-year-old Lilly is left in the care of monks and taught the Qur’an by a great Sufi teacher. As she flees Morocco for Ethiopia and is ostracized for being a farenji, Lilly finds love and peace in the teachings of Islam. Kate Reading’s honeyed voice offers a direct delivery, flawless diction, and multidimensional characterizations. Alternating between the unsettled brutal regimes ruling Ethiopia in the ’70s and the harshness of British bigotry in the 1980s, the story details the grim effects of the Ethiopian diaspora on ordinary people, refugees forced to survive in London council flats. Camilla Gibb’s third novel is an expert political history, and Reading’s superb performance makes this complex human drama sound more like autobiography than fiction. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 06]