The Anglo-Ethiopian Society
Book Club - ONLINE - Silence is My Mother Tongue
Sulaiman Addonia
Tuesday 6th June 2023
Online event starting at 19:00 BST - Public event (all welcome to join).
Note - Register for the event on Eventbrite and you'll be emailed a Zoom link shortly before the event.
For this book club we're going to discuss Silence Is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia.
Saba arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl, devastated to have been wrenched from school and forced to abandon her books as her family flees to safety. In this unfamiliar, crowded and often hostile environment, she must carve out a new existence. As she struggles to maintain her sense of self, she remains fiercely protective of her mute brother, Hagos - each sibling resisting the roles gender and society assign.
Through a cast of complex, beautifully drawn characters, Sulaiman Addonia questions what it means to be a man, to be a woman, to be an individual when circumstance has forced the loss of all that makes a home or a future.
Sulaiman Addonia was born in 1974 in Eritrea to an Eritrean mother and Ethiopian father. After his father's murder the remaining family relocated to a refugee camp in Sudan. Further travels took him to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, before he and his brother obtained asylum in England in 1990. Although he didn't speak any English upon arrival in England he later studied at SOAS and UCL and became a naturalized British citizen in 2000.
Book a place using Eventbrite in order to be sent a link to the session. More registration details are on the Eventbrite page.
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Silence Is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia Publisher : The Indigo Press Ltd, 2019 ISBN : 9781911648062 (paperback) UK RRP £11.99 Also available as an ebook UK RRP £6.99 |