BLACK MAMBA BOY PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Nadifa Mohamed | 288 pages | 05 Aug 2010 | HarperCollins Publishers | 9780007315772 | English | London, United Kingdom Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Man kann als Leser diese Sehnsucht nach dem Vater sehr gut verstehen und sich mit dem Wunsch, ihn endlich kennenzulernen, identifizieren. Dieses Mal ist er bereits 22, verheiratet und hat den Wunsch, seiner Familie ein besseres Leben zu bescheren. Verwirrend fand ich tw. Fazit: Ein v. Vielleicht gar nichts, sie wollte evtl. Kann man lesen, muss man aber nicht unbedingt. Inhalt: Jemen Der C. Was interessiert Euch an diesem Roman? Habt Ihr schon einen Roman von Nadifa Mohamed gelesen? Ich werde die Gewinner der Leseexemplare am Bitte schaut hier nach, ob ihr gewonnen habt es erfolgt keine Gewinnbenachrichtung per PN! Bestellen bei:. Gruenente vor 5 Jahren. Jetzt kostenlos registrieren. ISBN: Verlag: dtv Verlagsgesellschaft. Rezensionen und Bewertungen Neu. Filtern: 5 Sterne Sortieren: Standard Hilfreichste Neueste. Kommentieren 0. Kurzmeinung: Weltliteratur im Sinne von Weltmusik. Startet als kalkulierter Weltbestseller und endet als engagierter Antikriegsroman. Louisdor vor 5 Jahren. Kommentare: 1. Buchina vor 5 Jahren. Weltensucher vor 5 Jahren. Smberge vor 5 Jahren. Kurzmeinung: Odyssee eines Jungen durch Ostafrika in den 30er Jahren. Trotzdem kein schlechtes Buch! Insider vor 5 Jahren. Die Odyssee eines kleinen Jungen durch Ostafrika Kommentare: 2. Herzlichen Dank an den C. Beste Buchneuerscheinung Taschenbuch November Beste Buchneuerscheinung Hardcover Januar Neuerscheinungen: Die besten neuen Romane Der Garten der verlorenen Seelen. Black Mamba Boy. The Orchard of Lost Souls. Mehr von Nadifa Mohamed. As he paced around… his feet gained feeling, they were like the hooves of a racehorse…they were not happy unless they could feel miles of earth passing underneath them every day. P Jama went to the river…he tied weights to the images of the dead corpses, burning men and lost eyes lodged in his mind, and plunged them to the bottom of the river. P He felt no joy or misery just a deep yearning for all things he had lost. The war was over but it had taken everything with it, and reduced his world to an island of peace surrounded by a sea of blood. P There were no titles in Gerset, no masters, or lords, not even misses; respect was given freely, equally, generously, all were descendants of Queen Kuname. P Her giant, black thicket of hair earned her the name Bighead, and she wore it like a crown of thorns…Her mother would sometimes put an afternoon aside to laboriously braid it, laying it down into manageable rows like their crops, before like a rainforest it burst out of its manmade boundaries and reclaimed its territory. It was up to him to live the life his father should have lived, to enjoy the sun and rivers, the fruit and honey that life offered. I expected so much from it and wanted to come back when I could lay it at your feet, but I was merely a puppet with fine strings holding me up. You might as well live both our lives for us. P Bethlehem put her hand on his heart. P In this society you were nobody unless you had been anointed with an identity by a bureaucrat. P Alexandria was like the ancient harlot mother of Aden and Djibouti, she had grown rich and now put on airs and graces but in dank, cobwebbed corners her truest colors were revealed. P In Egypt, Ajis would share cups with Liban, eat with him, befriend him because there was no one to judge them but their acceptance was a vapor that would evaporate under the Somali sun. P Like Aden, cosmopolitan Alexandria was not an easy place for poor Africans. People looked through them as if through vapor or stared at their bodies dissectingly, commenting on their teeth, noses, backsides. Alexandria belonged to the pashas who walked down streets cleaned for them, past doors held open for them, into hotels and shops where people quivered and fluttered around them. P The whole carriage was full of Somalis who had also entered Egypt illegally, all roamers who had only known porous insubstantial borders and were now confronted with countries caged behind barriers. P As Musa continued to talk he could see the remnants of what had been a sharp witty mind, but it had been pickled in gin and blunted by isolation. P …they could not read or write but they memorized everything with a skill only found in the illiterate. Only later in life do we see tugs of fate with clear eyes, the minute delays that lead to terrible loss, the unconscious choices that make our lives worth living…. P The hospitality was usually brisk and business-like but very generous…No questions were asked of the strange boys and no one reported their presence to the police, they treated Jama and Liban as otherworldly spirits who would report their compassion or meanness to a higher authority. P Sunset came and they scuttled out of the sandbank like crabs, the moon lighting the way forward and the crash of waves applauding their progress. P The hot red dirt of Africa, scintillating with mica as if God had made the earth with broken diamonds, would not be found anywhere else. But like the Somali women in Aden, Africa struggled to look after her children and let them run in the wind, giving them freedom to find their own way in the world. P If he had not bent with circumstances he would have been broken by them, but these people seemed to want to be broken or at least did not care. The refugees had been treated like animals, had been mocked, beaten, degraded by men reveling in their power, as had Jama, and that humiliation never left anyone. It sand on their backs like a demon, and these demons would intermittently dig their talons into their flesh and remind them of where they had been. I have lost my husband and son already, watched their ashes blow out of Nazi chimneys, I want peace, just peace, give me a little wasteland as long as my children can eat and sleep in peace. My father was a philosophy teacher but my daughters cannot even read, you think they can learn while you are fighting and smashing heads? Take your violence and murder to people who had had enough of comfort and peace. I want nothing from guns and bombs. You think you are David from the Bible but we are not your worshippers or subjects. In Palestine there must be no war, if there is war we may as well stay in Poland, or go to Eritrea, Cyprus or wherever the British want to send us. Jama barely understood what she said but he was moved by her…He had seen how strong women were better leaders than strong men. With the Italians he had learnt how to destroy but the women of Gerset had taught him how to create and sustain life. P He now understood that the war that had ravaged Eritrea had blazed across the world. Jama stared at the photographs of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Dresden. Naked children screaming with hollow mouths appeared in all the photographs calling to each other like Siamese twins who had been torn apart. African, European and Asian corpses were piled up in the pages of the magazine besides adverts for lipstick and toothpaste. Already the world was moving on, from somber black and white to lurid color. P Machines dedicated to fun and excitement had never existed in his word and here was a whole field of delirious mayhem…Rides to frighten, to elate, to compete in, every emotion was for sale…. P All of this became a kind of philosophy passed on from Abdullahi, that grey seas would be their goldmines, seagulls their pets, hairy blue-veined Britons their companions. Women and Africa were not a part of this brave new world. Beyond the rationing, the bomb sites, the slumlike housing, the angry dungareed men, Port Talbot was still the Promised Land, with every new technology obtainable, gas cookers, vending machines, top class radios, picture houses. P On the ship his love for her had been like a dove in a cage but it now stretched out its wings and soared. I might have been a scrawny, snot-nosed little boy but I promised myself something, that I would never abandon a child of mine, never. P They laughed over the things they could speak about, the rest was left to rust in the locked chambers of their hearts. They leave to become drivers, askaris, sailors, whatever, anything as long as it takes them far away. When I was farming in Gerset I felt this patch of land is mine, this tukul is mine, I planted this tree so I want to see it grow, now I think wherever my family is that is where I belong. P Jama let his legs move to the swinging jazz, let his hips whine a little, his shoulders shimmy, anything to free the music trapped within his soul. Ibukun Sep 12, You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. BLACK MAMBA BOY | Kirkus Reviews

On the other hand, Mohamed makes sure that the reader understands that for every one who survived, like Jama, there were many more who did not. By Karen M. Karen M. Sign up for our newsletters! Regional- und Provinzkrimis. Krimis aus aller Welt. Cosy Crime. Frauen Liebes-, Familien- und Schicksalsromane. Historische Romane Altertum. Sachbuch Psychologie. Land und Leute. Partnerschaft und Beziehungen. Kinder und Familie. Kommunikation und Motivation. Gesundheit und Entspannung. Kinderbuch Bilderbuch. Zum Vorlesen. Jugendbuch Fantasy. Science Fiction. Realistische Literatur. Historische Romane. Autoren Autoren von A bis Z. Karriere Arbeiten beim dtv. Freie Mitarbeit. Allgemeine Belletristik. Service Kontakt. Das Leben ist erbarmunglos. So denke ich zumindestens, nachdem ich dieses Buch gelesen habe. Der kleine Jama ist gerade einmal 11 Jahren alt. Auf seinem Weg erlebt er so manches Abenteuer. Jama bekommt hilfe, aber ebenso stellen sich ihm Andere in den Weg. Jama lebt in Jemen. Halb auf der Strasse, halb bei seiner Mutter. Der sterbende Kolonialismus und seine drastischen Asuuferungen werden anschaulich beschrieben. Nadifa Mohamed hat ihrem Vater ein lesenswertes Denkmal geschaffen. Auf weltweiten, insbesondere westlichen Verkaufserfolg hin konstruiert , war meine Antwort, und die Autorin eine Art afrikanische Isabelle Allende Toll beschrieben ist der Prozess des Heranwachsens und Erwachsenwerdens und der damit verbundenen Frustrationstoleranz, wenn etwa der Vater, auf dessen Suche Jama zeitlebens ist und bleiben wird, zu einen Zeitpunkt zu Tode kommt, zu dem das Wiedersehen schon verabredet ist. Soviel Zumutung durch einen Roman soll, darf und muss sein. Klingt nach Gegenwart, spielt aber in diesem Fall in den er Jahren. In eine Zeit, in der Armut zum Teil nochmal ganz andere Dimensionen hatte, als heute. Ein Roadmovie als Episodenserie. Unser Protagonist Jama reist von hier nach dort, bleibt mal hier, bleibt mal dort, reist wieder weiter. Das alles aber in einer seltsam abgehackten, scheinbar plan- und wahllosen Kette an Ereignissen, Orten und Zielen. Unser Protagonist bleibt leblos, unnahbar. Am Ende bleibt diese einerseits so faszinierende Geschichte nur ein Flickenteppich. Das ist, auf seine ganz eigene Art und Weise, immer noch etwas Besonderes, aber eine Leseempfehlung will mir nicht ganz von den Lippen kommen. Der Roman folgt Jama auf seiner Odysee, nie kommt er wirklich zur Ruhe. Er erlebt Hilfsbereitschaft, Liebe, aber auch viel Hass und Gewalt. Dabei wird alles in einem distanzierten Schreibstil geschildert. Definitiv eine sehr angenehme Hauptperson mit authentischem Charakter, deren Entwicklung im Verlauf des Buches gut zu beobachten ist. Ich konnte viel aus dem Buch mitnehmen; vor allem die Kultur und Geschichte Afrikas war mir neu. Durch den sehr bildhaften, detailverliebten, jedoch umgebungsorientierten Sprachstil, verlor man jedoch an vielen Stellen oft die Beziehung zu Jama und distanzierte sich als Leser von der Geschichte. Die Autorin Nadifa Mohamed hat sich vom Leben ihres Vaters zu der Geschichte inspirieren lassen und nimmt uns mit auf die beschwerliche Reise von Jama. Nadifa Mohamed: Black Mamba Boy - Mshale

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Already have an account? Log in. Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials. Sign Up. Pub Date: Aug. No Comments Yet. More by Nadifa Mohamed. Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of Kirkus Prize finalist. New York Times Bestseller. IndieBound Bestseller. Page Count: Publisher: Riverhead. Review Posted Online: Dec. More by James McBride. More About This Book. Pub Date: Oct. Review Posted Online: Sept. More by Toni Morrison. Please sign up to continue. Almost there! Reader Writer Industry Professional. Send me weekly book recommendations and inside scoop. Keep me logged in. Sign in using your Kirkus account Sign in Keep me logged in. Return to Book Page. Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed. For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden, Yemen, ; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world. Jama is forced For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of East Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camps, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published January 7th by HarperCollins Publishers. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Black Mamba Boy , please sign up. See 1 question about Black Mamba Boy…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Black Mamba Boy. Oct 28, Paul rated it really liked it Shelves: women-of-colour Nadifa Mohameds first novel is an homage to her father and is based on his life and wanderings around North East Africa in the s and s. Mohamed explains the title as being related to something that happened to her grandmother: When my grandmother was heavily pregnant with my father, she was following her familys caravan and she got lost and separated from the others. She sat down to rest under an acacia tree and a black mamba snake crept upon her belly before slithering away, leaving her unharmed. But British Somalis, who have been here in numbers for over two decades, are not so firmly placed in the national consciousness. And often when we are written about it is with the worst connotations: violence, terrorism, gangs …young Somalis' sense of identity seems more powerfully formed by the persistently negative representations found in the media. Even though it is a West African tradition, I thought it suited perfectly my father's story; I wanted a style that would celebrate his life with great literary flourishes rather than objectively describe it. The griot tradition also shares similarities with Somali poetry in their methods of composition and dissemination, and was a natural fit to the wandering, exploratory life of my father. We have a geographical tour of the area and a historical one as Jama becomes involved with the Italian army invading Ethiopia in the Second World War. Jama, as he is growing up lives on the streets and life can be tough as he is often hungry. His voyage is an Odyssean one around North Africa and ending up in Britain. Jama experiences famine, war, illness, loss, racism and homelessness. He also finds kindness from Somali communities around the area of his travels and sometimes in unexpected places. The high heavens and low earth were joined by a sheet of conquering raindrops, followed by a thundering marching band that seemed to be playing drums, cymbals, violins, and reedy flutes whose notes fell down and smashed against the gasping desert earth, battering down an angry song of life. Towards the end of the book Jama is working as a stoker on a British ship, The SS Exodus with a cargo of Jews purportedly being taken to safety, in actuality prisoners; an illustration that it was not just the Nazis who persecuted the Jews. Mohamed challenges the western narration of these events, but also provides hope for the beleaguered communities of Northern Africa. There are irritations at times, but this is an accomplished first novel which engages the reader and makes its points effectively. Jan 05, Moses Kilolo rated it really liked it. Nidifa Mohamed published her first book Black Mamba Boy in She took the material for it from her fathers account of his real life to craft this phenomenal book, which, unlike her flawless beauty, is made more achingly beautiful by its mesh of strength and unapologetic flaws. I met Nadifa at a writers workshop in the middle of last year, and the wisdom, passion and grace with which she spoke seems to be naturally instilled into her writing. The book is about a journey. Not about a destination. Though Jama is convinced there is a destination. He dreams of meeting his father. Just like we all are in life, breathlessly working towards attaining our goals. He has grown tired and dissatisfied with his life on the street as a small Somali scavenger. And when his mother dies, he decides to move. Each person sitting passively or impatiently, wondering whether the tracks of their fate will take them on their clattering iron horse to their destination or will sweep them away in an invisible path to another world. That desire to move, to seek to complete ourselves somehow by finding an object of desire to which we might move towards. Often times this is an object that is never there, but it causes us to engage in the journey nonetheless. At barely ten years old the boy is left to cater for himself, and when he begins his journey, one can only admire his spirit and courage. My mind was spinning. One with no highways but the scorching desert sands for your path. A little unapologetic flaw, I think, for which Mohammed allows Jama to transition rather too fast from place to place. Never truly settling. One must also remember that this novel is set in the 30s and 40s. Just a few decades shy of the independence movement and at the height of colonialism, and equally, the onset of the World War II, which started in Europe. Mohamed puts this in context beautifully. Not only does one Italian official imprison Jama in a chicken pen, but he also renames him for his own pleasure. The cruelty mated on Africans by the colonialists is great; and the reader with an aversion to human indignity will probably skip this section of the book. One may have a problem with the range of movement, the many places Jama visits and the many characters that he meets and leaves, but that is the nature of life. There really isn't an absolute need for a direct dramatic trajectory in life is there; we have the ups and downs that make it worth living. Even if, like Jama, we lack a map or have no single penny in our pockets View 2 comments. I'm so thankful that I can read. I'm thankful that I happened to be born and grow up in circumstances that allowed me the luxury of literacy and the free time required to exercise and hone my reading skills. Books are a tool for education, a refuge and a means of escape, and a powerful drug that entertains and empowers. I can only imagine what people who grow up in circumstances more abject than mine think when they first behold a book, first understand the words on a page--what a feeling that must be. In Black Mamba Boy , Jama's path to literacy is a slow and rocky one. As a boy in Aden in , he struggles to find a place. Eventually, his mother's death forces him to leave home in search of his father, who has never returned from his own quest for fortune. Jama spends the next ten years travelling from one part of East Africa to another. Along the way he tries a myriad of jobs, from the most physical and menial to the terrifyingly militaristic. Throughout his travels, Jama is anchored at one end by his faith in his mother, who is watching over him from the afterlife, and his imagined conversations with his father, urging him to continue on this journey without an end. The story can seem a bit aimless, at times. Though Jama is primarily motivated by the quest to find his father, he takes a slow, meandering path towards that goal. Just when it seems like he has found a stable job that will help him earn enough money to find his father, a twist enters the story and shakes up his life. Death, racial abuse, poverty, and even locusts dog Jama's heels. As he travels from community to community, he is forever at the mercy of his identity as a Somali, as a black African, as a young boy. Each encounter, for better or for worse, changes Jama and influences his growth. By the end of the book, he is no longer the naive boy who left Aden to find his father. He is an accomplished young man with a child and wife of his own waiting for him; he has seen the world, seen what it offers and the problems it creates. He is not infallible, not invincible, but he is not defeated either. The narration in Black Mamba Boy can seem very distant. Some events happen very quickly, with weeks or months passing in the span of a paragraph and very little characterization of Jama to show for it. Even events that receive a slower, more detailed treatment seem to happen at a remove. The tense here is one of a definite, fixed path rather than a pregnant, possible past. There is little in the way of suspense. Near the end of the story, Jama is delighted with how much he has earned from his first voyage aboard a British ship out of Port Said. Then he squanders the money on women in London. This kind of reversal could have happened slowly and intimately, with the reader cringing as it becomes apparent what is happening. Instead, it happens quite quickly, and I never really felt connected to Jama as he was wasting his money. The same kind of distance is present for most of the book. I'm not a fan of this kind of narration and the barrier it creates between reader and protagonist. That being said, the narration also clearly presents a world view of a young boy. There is no intrusive injection of political concerns, no exposition about the disposition of British or Italian or German forces in Africa. The information, and its interpretation, in this book all comes to us the way a young man from Somalia might learn and interpret it as he travels across East Africa. His opinions of Italians, Britons, and other Europeans are formed from his close--and, sadly, colonial--interactions with individuals from these nations. There are ironic observations or misunderstandings that we, as readers from a different background, might be tempted to find laughable--for Jama, though, they are real and credible points of view. This perspective was what originally drew me to Black Mamba Boy , so I'm glad that my expectations were not misplaced. This isn't just a novel set in Somalia but told from the point of view of a wise, educated person. It isn't about the struggles of Somalis filtered through the lens of someone who shares my upbringing. It's not even filtered through the lens of someone like Mohamed herself, or her father as he is now upon whose life the story is loosely based. It's a raw portrayal of what the life of a young boy in Somalia at that age might have been like. There are cultural and social forces, such as the clan structure, that somewhat escaped my understanding--but I could see their presence. But I really appreciated this type of perspective. I picked up Black Mamba Boy on a whim, knowing nothing about the book or its author. I was pleased with the result. Though it lacks a single, defining characteristic that makes it awesome or intriguing, there is enough to this book to make it a worthwhile read. View all 3 comments. May 30, Kavita rated it it was ok Shelves: historical-fiction , uk , egypt , somalia , sudan , eritrea , yemen , palestine , djibouti. Based on the story of her father's life, Nadifa Mohamed has woven a tale of a young boy's journey through Africa and back. Born in Hargeisa in Somaliland, Jama quickly finds his ideal home life evaporating when his father disappears one day. His mother waits in vain and then decides to move to Yemen to find work. When she dies there, Jama sets out on a mission to find his father under the mistaken impression that they would love each other. I don't know what parts of the book are genuine and Based on the story of her father's life, Nadifa Mohamed has woven a tale of a young boy's journey through Africa and back. I don't know what parts of the book are genuine and which ones are embellished, but it was indeed a remarkable journey that took Jama through a lot of African countries, Palestine, and Wales. Unlike his father, however, he chose to return to his wife and child, which sort of made me like him more at the end than I did through the first half of the book. Despite the promising theme, I did not much enjoy this narrative. The constant nastiness of people around Jama in the first couple of chapters simply put me off the whole book. When Jama, tired of his mother's abuse, runs away, his street friends put me off even further. I disliked Shidane right from the beginning and just wanted him to go away. But he keeps appearing and is in supposedly one of the most heartwrenching scenes of the book. Except I wasn't heart-wrenched. I just yawned and turned the page. There are some quite interesting moments in the book and Jama is not all about stealing and using misogynist swear words. In fact, those aspects of his character only come out when Shidane is there. The author keeps us focused on a single character for most of the book - Jama. But while this works in large parts of the narrative, it doesn't always make sense. I still don't understand why some people were randomly nasty to him. The author also keeps the characters at arms' length and I felt a complete disconnect from Jama and pretty much everyone else. Even though momentous scenes were happening on the page, I never got emotionally involved. This is a decent enough book and Jama's journey is really interesting in itself, especially considering the time period when the world was in chaos during and after World War Two. But I think she failed to bring much depth to the story, which would have made it outstanding. Perhaps, this might have worked better for me if it had been non- fiction. Oct 05, William rated it it was amazing. This book was really in my wheelhouse. I love historical fiction. I love African literature. And I love reading about places that I have absolutely no knowledge of. The action centers around the horn of Africa in the pre and post World War 2 years. The protagonist, Jama, a Somali, finds himself caught up in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and its neighbors. Jama and his mother are living with very reluctant relatives and their situation is precarious. Eventually he leaves home to live on the This book was really in my wheelhouse. Eventually he leaves home to live on the streets only to return and find his mother dying. When she passes he lights out to find the father he never knew. Jama is a survivor and his adventures and near death experiences are harrowing to say the least. The author easily evokes both the beauty and poverty of the near desert lands and its melting pot of peoples. Jama's quest for reunification with his father and a better life for his family and friends is at turns heartbreaking and beautiful. The consequences of occupation by colonial powers on the peoples of the horn of Africa still reverberate. I feel that I got a vicarious peek at a place I've always wished to know a little better. View 1 comment. Mar 03, David Hebblethwaite rated it really liked it. Black Mamba Boy is based on the story of Nadifa Mohameds father, Jama, whom we first meet as a street child in Aden in When he falls out irrevocably with his friends, then loses his mother, Jama resolves to set out and find Guure, his own long-missing father, last heard of heading for Sudan which is not nearly as far as Jama will travel over the course of the following twelve years. When he falls out irrevocably with his friends, then loses his mother, Jama resolves to set out and find Guure, his own long- missing father, last heard of heading for Sudan — which is not nearly as far as Jama will travel over the course of the following twelve years. There are, however, moments when Black Mamba Boy stumbles; they tend to be when Mohamed is acting as the 21st-century person looking back on history, rather than as the novelist inhabiting the period. But I will say that I have an abiding impression of Jama and others — individuals, peoples, nations — enduring circumstances almost too harrowing for words, and doing what they can to survive. Jama survives, of course, and one might say that the trait of his that most shines through in the novel is his tenacity, his striving to grasp the opportunities that come along, however steep the obstacles. What a story he had to tell; what a story Nadifa Mohamed has told. Aug 26, Bobbie Darbyshire rated it liked it. More biography than fiction and sadly not quite either. Not enough historical explanation to educate me, not enough characterisation to hook me, not enough narrative shape to engross and entertain me. Some good descriptive writing, and I do know more now than I did, but the occasional sentimental authorial voice was intrusive, and, grrrrr, so many sentences were separated by commas - was her editor like I was! It took me a while to get through this book. I just didn't care about Jama, the main character, and he moves from place to place so quickly I didn't get a chance to care about any of the others. Epic journey? Instead it is a little bit of everything and not enough of anything. Mar 14, Barbara McEwen rated it really liked it Shelves: africa. Essentially it is the life and travels of a young Somalian. It is a great adventure story and a great example of what historical fiction can be. You really get insight into the lives of refugees, the variety of native populations in Northern Africa, and colonization around WWII. I love how no matter where Jama goes he will always be ok as long as he can find his clan. Lots of goodness here, it is worth picking up. Dec 26, Karen Triggs rated it really liked it Shelves: africa , postcolonial. You can almost smell this powerful first novel. There is the stink of rotting goat meat, the sour odour of sweat and dust and the hot smoke in the boiler room of a British Navy steamship, as we follow Somaliland-born Jama, the main character, on an extraordinary journey from the backstreets of s Yemen, through '30s and '40s Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, to the '50s docksides of peasouper Britain. If you wrung out the pages there'd be a mess of blood and sand - the young Jama is You can almost smell this powerful first novel. If you wrung out the pages there'd be a mess of blood and sand - the young Jama is educated in the school of exceptionally hard knocks, loosing first his mother, then his father, and then - worse - conscripted into Mussolini's army, East Africa branch. So, it's a visceral read and UK- Somalilander author Nadifa Mohamed's writing is so raw that, at times, I had to put the book aside and take a deep breath. It turns my stomach even to recall a scene in which one of Jama's friends is brutally sodomised and then slaughtered by a couple of power-crazed Italian soldiers in Ethiopia. I won't say it's all doom and gloom - Black Mamba Boy is not quite a misery memoir. 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