Conville & Walsh

Nadifa Mohamed has been nominated in the longlist for this year’s Orange prize for fiction.

1935, Aden. Jama is ten years old and has grown up in the slums of this ancient city, learning to survive amongst the cosmopolitan ragamuffins and vagabonds of the port. When he loses everything in Aden, his only chance of survival lies in finding his father, who disappeared years before. But between him and his father lies a dangerous, lonely expanse and just ahead is the war that will test the world to its limits. So begins an epic journey by foot that will take Jama through war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt, Palestine and finally to the icy realms of Britain that he’d heard about in Aden.

Kate Saunders of The Times had already hailed BLACK MAMBA BOY as ‘a stunning debut,’ telling her readers last January to ‘watch out for this one in the prize season,’ and the Independent praised ‘an accomplished first novel.’

The Orange prize has existed since 1996, and was set up to champion innovative writing by women. It remains one of the most prestigious prizes in the literary calendar.