I'm leading the discussion tonight at book club. Knowing I was going to Ethiopia, Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb was my choice. The author spent a year in Ethiopia and the book (fiction) takes place half in London, England and half in Ethiopia, all in the recent past. I really enjoyed Gibb's writing and Lilly, the main character's story. According to the Literary Review of Canada, it is ".. a novel that is culturally sensitive, consummately researched and deeply compassionate... richly imagined, full of sensuous detail and arresting imagery... Gibb has smuggled Western readers into the centre of lives they might never otherwise come into contact with, let alone understand."
Other reading I'd recommend:
- Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese. Also a work of fiction, split between Ethiopia and New York City.
- Into Africa: a guide to Sub-Saharan Culture & Diversity - Yale Richmond, Phyllis Gestrin (non-fiction)
- 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa - Stephanie Nolan (non-fiction)
- Ethiopia - Philip Briggs (Bradt Travel Guide)
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