A Mouth Full of Salt

The Nile brings them life. But the Nile also takes away. 1970s. A village in North Sudan is shaken by the news that a little boy has drowned. Then the village camels die of a mysterious illness; the date tree fields catch fire and burn to the ground. The women whisper rumours of a mysterious sorceress from the Nuba mountains. It is the dry season. The men have no work, the women have their own troubles, the children continue to play where the river runs over its own banks. For 14-year-old Fatima escape lies in the big city of Khartoum. 1950s. In Khartoum, Nyamakeem is 33, a single mother making her way in a world that keeps girls and women back. Worse, she's from South Sudan. As civil war swells, her position in the capital becomes untenable. Nyamakeem decides to leave for the village. A Mouth Full of Salt uncovers a country teetering between centuries of tradition and seismic change,

Reem Gaafar is a writer, physician and filmmaker based in Canada. Her writing has appeared in African Arguments, African Feminism, Teakisi Magazine, Andariya and 500 Words Magazine and the collection I Know Two Sudans. Her short story 'Finding Descartes' was published in Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices (HarperVia, 2023). A Mouth Full of Salt is her debut novel and Winner of the Island Prize 2023.