A Mouth Full of Salt – By: Reem Gaafar

ISBN: 9781849250900

By: Reem Gaafar

Year of Publishing: New edition 27 Mar. 2025

Publisher: Saqi Books

Page Numbers: 256 pages

Cover: Paperback

Dimensions ‏: ‎ 12.9 x 2 x 19.2 cm

The Nile brought them life, but the Nile was not their friend.

A small farming village in North Sudan wakes up one morning to the news that a little boy has drowned. Soon after, the animals die of a mysterious illness and the date gardens catch fire and burn to the ground. Whispers ripple through the village, sharing a secret that has been buried for a generation.

Sixteen-year-old Fatima is impatient. Will the search for the little boy’s body unearth the past her village is trying so hard to bury? In Khartoum, a single mother makes her way in a world that wants to keep women back. As civil war swells, her position in the capital becomes untenable. She must return, to face both the villagers and the river that have given and taken so much away from her.

A Mouth Full of Salt uncovers a country on the brink of seismic change as its women decide for themselves which traditions are fit for purpose – and which prophecies it’s time to rewrite.