Sweetness in the Belly - Camilla Gibb

While I wouldn't say that this is in the top 10 novels I've read, nor would I call it a well-written favorite, it is a fascinating look at a world that I never even knew existed.



Lilly's world-travelling British parents are killed leaving her alone, a white orphan in Ethiopia. She is raised by Muslin Sufis, and falls in love with an Ethiopian doctor. Somehow, during the famine and political uprising in Ethiopia in the 1980's she ends up back in England alone, living among the many refugees. It covers religion, politics, feminism and more wrapped up in hope, heartbreak and the idea of home.