In Thatcher's "London", Lilly, a white Muslim nurse, struggles in a state of invisible exile. As Ethiopian refugees gradually fill the flats of the housing estate where she lives, Lilly tentatively begins to share with them her longing for the home she herself once had in Africa and her heartbreaking search for her missing lover. Back in Haile Selassie's "Ethiopia", the young Lilly, born in the 1950s to British parents, now orphaned and full of religious conviction, finds herself living in the city of Harar. She is drawn to the idealistic young doctor, Aziz, himself an outsider in the community. But then convulsions of a new revolutionary order separate them, sending Lilly to an England she has never seen, while Aziz disappears. Camilla Gibb's evocation of the distinctive world of the ancient city and of its unique religion and culture is vivid and rich. She draws us just as completely into the mind of the older Lilly, emotionally paralysed by her loss. The result is a fascinating and remarkably moving portrayal of a life lived at the cusp of two cultures.

Sweetness in the Belly

Literature & Fiction

CAMILLA GIBB

Literary

Vintage Books

<p>Very minor cover crease, otherwise pristine. Ships fast from NY.</p>

The Petty Details of So-and-So's Life

World Literature

Heinemann

The Relatives: A Novel

Doubleday, Canada

The Petty Details Of So-and-so's Life

Contemporary

William Heinemann

The Beauty of Humanity Movement

ATLANTIC BOOKS *

Mouthing the Words

By turns harrowing and hilarious, this adroitly narrated winner of the Toronto Book Award re-creates the world in the imagination of Thelma. It's a world in which she can escape some of her more painful childhood realities, like those games her father likes to make her play, where he's the boss and she the naughty secretary. And her mother so fiercely favors her younger brother, the cherubic Willy, that Thelma finds herself perpetually in emotional exile. No wonder Thelma asks practically every adult she meets to adopt her. Along Thelma's bumpy way from a rural English village to Canada to a law degree at Oxford, she meets many potential parents and even makes some friends, but it is with the companions of her fertile imagination&#8212;with the scaredy-baby Janawee, moody and timid Ginniger, and big, strong, stoic Heroin&#8212;that Thelma finds comfort. With them, too, she loses an already tenuous connection to reality, though ultimately Thelma's spirit and humor prove to be as indomitable as her wit. "Moving and comic at once. . . . Hallucinatory, hilarious, and haunting."&#8212;Boston Globe "Prickly, unsentimental. . .a portrait of terrible comic humanity."&#8212;New York Times Book Review "Mesmerizing. . . . Lush, visceral prose . . . rings with an authority rarely found in first novels."&#8212;Washington Post Book World "A novel of astonishing power . . . . An instantaneous classic."&#8212;Baltimore Sun "Elegant . . . sings with an almost Victorian delicacy and sophistication."&#8212;San Francisco Chronicle

Pedlar Press

Beauty of Humanity Movement

The acclaimed author of Sweetness in the Belly journeys to  Vietnam in this rich and tantalizing new novel.Raised in the United States but Vietnamese by birth, Maggie has  come to Hanoi seeking clues to the fate of her father, a dissident  artist who disappeared during the war. Her search brings her to Old Man  Hu'ng's pho stall. The old man once had a shop frequented by  revolutionary artists, but now Tu', a hustling young entrepreneur, is  his most faithful customer. Maggie, Hu'ng, and Tu' come together during  a highly charged season that will mark them forever. Exploring the  indelible legacies of war and art, as well as love's power to renew,  The Beauty of Humanity Movement is a stellar achievement by a  globally renowned literary light.

They say that the history of Vietnam can be found in a bowl of pho, and from his handcart- kitchen, Old Man Hu'ng makes the best in all Hanoi. But a striking young Vietnamese-American woman - Maggie Ly - wants more from him than a bowl of soup.  Just a young girl when Saigon fell, Maggie fled with her mother to America, leaving her dissident father to an uncertain fate. Now in her thirties, she has returned to the country of her birth in the hopes of discovering what became of him - and Hu'ng may hold the key.  Maggie's guide through Hanoi is Tu, a street-smart young man as fluent in the ways of Western culture as he is governed by his own. Together the old man, the returning daughter, and the young entrepreneur become unlikely friends and allies; and as their stories gradually unfurl, each adds a new layer to another largely untold story: the story of modern Vietnam.

Atlantic

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