SWEETNESS IN THE 
BELLY
by Camilla Gibb
National Bestseller!
Shortlisted for the Giller Prize
Chosen as one of the Globe & Mail's Best Books of 2005
Chosen as one of Amazon.ca's Best Books of 2005
"Gibb's territory is urgently modern and controversial but she enters it softly, with grace, integrity and a lovely compassionate story. A poem to belief and to the displaced - humane, resonant, original, impressive."
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Gibb skilfully weaves two distinct narratives around her central character...There is heartbreak and humour in equal measure...As much as it is a paean to Ethiopia, Sweetness in the Belly is ultimately a tale of universal remembrance and forgetting, or forgiveness, of losing and then finding a home."
— Scotland on Sunday
"With sure-handed, urgent prose, Gibb chronicles the remarkable spiritual and geographical journey of a white British Muslim woman who struggles with cultural contradictions to find community and love. ... The novel fluently speaks the "languages of religion and exile," depicting both the multifaceted heartbreak of those lucky enough to escape violent regime changes and the beauty of unlikely bonds created by the modern multicultural world."
— Publishers Weekly
"A compellingly told story of a young white Muslim woman, whose nomadic parents left her with a legacy of intense and varied cultural bonds. Addressing the pain of immigration, the beauty of sharing unfamiliar customs and the horror of seeing one's home country in tatters, Gibb is unerringly direct"
— Good Housekeeping (UK)
"Camilla Gibb has created a novel that is culturally sensitive, consummately researched and deeply compassionate. …Her writing is fluid, visceral, vivid and even, never resorting to sensationalism or sentimentality. Richly imagined, full of sensuous detail and arresting imagery"
— Literary Review of Canada
"A wonderful feat of imagination and empathy. I had to suppress bitter feelings of literary envy, even as I couldn't stop devouring it."
— Louis de Bernieres, author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin
From award-winning and bestselling author Camilla Gibb comes a richly imagined narrative of one woman's search for love and belonging cast against a nuanced portrait of political upheaval.
In the racially-charged world of Thatcher's London, Lilly, a young, white, Muslim nurse, struggles in a state of invisible exile. As Ethiopian refugees gradually begin to fill the flats of the housing estate where she lives, she begins to share her longing for a home in that distant land and her heartbreaking search for her missing lover, Aziz.
Gibb takes us on a journey back to Haile Selassie's Ethiopia, and tells the remarkable story of Lilly's discovery of an unexpected place for herself within the walls of the ancient city of Harar, a revered centre of Islam, unique in its language, customs and beliefs. As her roots in the place deepen so too does her clandestine relationship with the young Dr. Aziz. But Ethiopia is veering toward revolution, and hope for a future with Aziz is dramatically threatened when the country is thrown into political turmoil.
A psychologically complex and utterly convincing story, alive with political insight and sensuous detail, Sweetness in the Belly is a mesmerizing work from one of Canada's most distinctive and exciting voices
Camilla Gibb was born in London, England, and grew up in Toronto. She has a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Oxford University for which she conducted fieldwork in Ethiopia. Her two previous novels, Mouthing the Words and The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, have been published in 18 countries, receiving rave reviews around the world. She is one of 21 writers on the "Orange Futures List"-a list of young writers to watch, compiled by the jury of the prestigious Orange Prize.
- Doubleday Canada, March 2005; Anchor Canada, paperback, March, 2006
- William Heinemann, UK and Australia, January 2006
- The Penguin Press, US, March 2006
- Ambo Anthos, The Netherlands, September 2005
- Alfaguara, Spain, 2006
- Cappelens, Norway
- Laguna, Serbia
"Camilla Gibb's ambitious third novel is a study in the complexities of context, a drama playing on concentric stages. …Sweetness in the Belly is vivid and rich with interesting detail, politically relevant and eminently readable."
— Globe and Mail
"This is a rarity, a novel that transforms expectations. A hugely ambitious work executed with deceptive ease, it is an unbelievably odd tale, yet utterly convincing, able to transport us behind closed borders and back again. … a marvellous sight to behold."
— Montreal Gazette
"Camilla Gibb's integration of history and fiction in Sweetness in the Belly is superb. …Gibb's crowning achievement is a knack for creating believable historical characters. Characters whose credibility is anchored by the convincing commonplace of their lives."
— Winnipeg Free Press
"Sweetness In The Belly is a deeply imagined immersion into the lives of people for whom war, poverty, marginalization and exile are the commonplace trials. Gibb's understanding of this world seems almost uncanny but it is her compassion for her characters that impressed me the most. Here is a novel that challenges and disturbs as it enlightens and uplifts. A really exceptional achievement."
— Barbara Gowdy, the author of The White Bone
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