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    Black Mamba Boy
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    Black Mamba Boy
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    Black Mamba Boy
    Ebook303 pages5 hours

    Black Mamba Boy

    By Nadifa Mohamed

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    WINNER OF THE BETTY TRASK AWARD

    LONGLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE

    GRANTA BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2013

    For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world.

    Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world.

    Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of East Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere.

    This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJan 7, 2010
    ISBN9780007315765
    Unavailable
    Black Mamba Boy
    Author

    Nadifa Mohamed

    Nadifa Mohamed was born in Hargeisa in 1981 while Somalia was falling deeper into dictatorship. In 1986 she moved to London with her family in what she thought was a temporary move but a couple of years later it became permanent as war broke out in Somalia. She was educated in London and went to Oxford to study History and Politics and she finally returned to Hargeisa, now in the new Republic of Somaliland, in 2008. She lives in London and is currently working on her third novel.

    Read more from Nadifa Mohamed

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    Reviews for Black Mamba Boy

    3.5/5

    66 ratings13 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This story, supposedly based on the experiences of the author's father, tells of Jama, a Somali boy whose first experiences in life are of poverty, hunger and grief. Jama lives with his mother and distant relatives in Aden, where his mother works in a coffee factory. When she dies, Jama is alone. He sets out to find his father, whom he has been told is working in Sudan. Over the period from the thirties to the late 1940's, Jama wanders across East Africa and the middle east, offering an inside view of the tumult of war and the pain of poverty, but also the rich cultures of the area. As he does so, Jama grows from an orphan child into an adult who learns to make his own decisions.

      Overall, this book is full of vivid imagery and illumination of history from an "inside" perspective. Jama's character is not especially deep or engaging, but the events he experiences keep the reader engaged.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written as a Somali myself I benefited from the rich history. History repeats itself up to today our Normardic lifestyles still lives on .
    • 4/5
      This is the author's first novel. It a semi biographical account of her grandfather's life. Jama, a eleven year old boy in Aden a costal town in Yemen, lives with his mother who works in the local coffee bean factory in 1935. The boy and his mother live on the terrace of their relatives. The mother and the boy are ill treated by their relatives and so he runs away from home to live on the streets. He grows up on the street and after his mother dies of tuberculosis returns to his hometown in Somalia. East Africa at that time is governed by Italians and as the Second World War approaches, Jama is recruited in the army as a foot soldier. As the Italians suffer heavy losses and are on the verge of defeat at the hand of the British, Jama deserts from the army and starts a shop in a small town in Eritrea where he meets and fall in love with a girl whom he eventually marries. But Jama again travels to Egypt to find work in merchant navy ships but eventually finds his way back to his family.This story gives us an insight into the Somali lifestyle and their struggle during a difficult time (Second World War). The writing is mediocre but the subject is quite interesting hence it is a page turner.
    • 3/5
      I found this novel hard to get into but I persevered and once I got a quarter of a way in I found i kept turning the pages and enjoying it. It was sad, but real and that is what kept me intrigued. I found the over use of descriptive words bothersome and I wish I had a vocabulary / glossary so that I could understand what some of the Somalian / African words meant. The story was set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world. Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of east Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camp, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family. A lot goes on in this story and you find yourself really getting to know the characters of Jama, Shidane and Abdi.
    • 4/5
      Good, very good. Filled with highs and lows that keep you reading. You are on the journey with the narrator and it is a worthwhile one.
    • 2/5
      This is a case of "it's not you it's me". I cannot get my head around the idea of a fictional memoir. Feels like the author should either have written an account of her father's life , or written fiction. This, as a genre, makes no sense to me. The story it tells is broad enough in scope to be interesting. Jama is a street child in Aden, but his mother is from British Somaliland. How she came to be there is never explained, but when she dies, he returns to his homeland, then travels North, arrives in Egypt and joins the British Navy before seeing the world. Along the way he witnesses the Italian actions in Africa and the way that they treat the natives. It is all perfectly interesting enough to stand on its own merits, I don't see why it needs to be made fiction. I spent too much time wondering how true each story that was told was. At times she tells of things that our main character cannot have known, a case of I want to tell this, where can a shoehorn it in. At others there was a massively high level of co-incidence. It feels like a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive life story. And it ends rather abruptly, just as Jama's horizons have expanded, so they seem diminished by the ending. I feel this is a story worth telling, the format to tell it just doesn't work for me.
    • 3/5
      Reason read: ANC Mohamed Nadifa is a Somali-British novelist. This was her debut novel. This is a story of a coming of age young Somali boy in East Africa and Europe and in this the reader also is given the history of the people and the land. It was interesting and well written. Time period covers the 30s and 40s. It reminds me of other picaresque books. This book was obtained from Hoopla but is also available free on Audible.
    • 4/5
      Jama and his mother left Somaliland after Jama's father deserted them, and they are now living as dependents with unfriendly relatives in Yemen. To stay out of everyone's hair, including his mercurial mother's, Jama spends his days roaming the markets with other semi-feral children. After his mother's death, Jama decides to search for the father he has never known. At the age of eleven, he travels first to his homeland, then on to Sudan through Italian-held Abyssinia. After a stint as an askaris (local soldier serving in a colonial army), Jama wanders further north searching for a better future in the British merchant marines.Jama's 1000-mile journey is based on the the life of the author's father. The book opens in 1935 and ends in 1947, covering a very tumultuous period in African history. The Italians and the British are vying for territory and as World War II begins, Jama is caught up in causes he doesn't understand, including, at the end of the novel, the drama of the Jewish refugees on the Exodus. As with all fictional biographies, I wonder where the line is between fact and fiction, but if even the bones of the story are true, it's an incredible one. For a debut novel, it is very well done, and it was long-listed for the Orange Prize.
    • 2/5
      Black Mamba Boy follows a boy named Jama as he struggles through crushing poverty and war in a number of locations: Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Egypt, Palestine and England. It's almost more of a travelogue than a novel; we follow Jama as he goes to different places and sees and does different things, but there's no real rising tension or climactic conclusion. Still, depending on your tastes that may well be no deterrent to you. (Feb 2019)
    • 3/5
      Could have been much better.I did not enjoy this book as much as I had expected, the writing style was awkward and the narration lacked 'fill-in' detail.As an example - it is unclear how Jama's mother came to be in Yemen when her family is from Hargeisa, Somaliland, and her husband seems to have headed off in enteirly the opposte direction.Instances like this occur throughout the book and I spent a fair amount of time back-tracking to try and clarify points, often fruitlessly.From the outset I did not feel the story flowed, I kept expecting it to get better but in my opinion it did not.The other thing that would have been a great help is a map of the countries concerned. I'm sure my geography needs to be improved but I don't suppose I was the only person who had to go on to Google maps to see how Yemen, Somaliland and Palestine were connected, being from 3 vastly different areas of the world.Jama's father disappeared from his life while he was still a baby and he was left with just his mother to care for him. She had to work long hours to make enough for them to live on and Jama was left running loose with the street kids in 1930's Aden, Yemen.He spent less and less time at home and learned to survive 'in the wild'.When his mother died he returned to relatives in his native Somalia, but it is not long before he decided to go in search of his father, rumoured to be working as a driver in Sudan.This was a hugely long and dangerous treck for a ten-year-old and relied very much on the kindness of strangers and distant relatives, and on Jama's amazing instinct for survival.I agree with reviewers who would have liked a little more explanation at the end. I would have liked to have known whether the wife Jama returns to is the author's mother and how they ultimately came to be living in UK.Perhaps a sequel is planned???Not of the same standard as Khaled Hosseini, Andrea Levy nor Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and not a book I'd particularly recommend. The one thing going for it was the fact that it was based on the true story of the author's father but I would have liked to have known to what extent it followed his true journey rather than fiction.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This debut novel by Mohamed, a British writer of Somali descent, is a fictionalized account of her father's harrowing childhood as an abandoned orphan in the Middle East and Africa, which was selected for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction longlist.The boy was named Jama by his restless father Guure, who left his wife Ambaro and son behind in mid 1930s British Somaliland to seek work in Sudan. However, Ambaro called the young boy Goode, or Black Mamba, in honor of the huge black mamba snake that slithered over her pregnant belly without causing harm to her or the unborn Jama.The pair moved to the Yemeni coastal town of Aden, to live with relatives, who looked down upon the raggedy pair. The young Jama spent more time away from the house, and ultimately made a way of his own, forming alliances with other street kids and neighborhood ne'er do wells. After his mother's early death, he was sent back to his native village in Somaliland, but he quickly grew bored and embarked on a quest to find his father in Sudan.His travels take him through Eritrea, which was occupied by the bloodthirsty and ruthless Italian army, Sudan, Egypt and Palestine. Danger and death are constant companions, yet Jama displays an uncanny ability to beat the odds and escape relatively unscathed. The book ends as he obtains a passport from British Somaliland, which permits him to obtain work on a British naval ship that will take him to the UK.Black Mamba Boy is a riveting look at a most unusual childhood, which is richly portrayed by the author. Although Jama's life is full of tribulations, he manages to enjoy his life fully, making this an uplifting and inspiring story that is highly recommended.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Jama is a young Somali boy, living the life of a street urchin in Yemen/Aden in 1935. His mother's death is the catalyst for his odyssey across North Africa in search of his father, who had left the famnily in order to find work.This is more than the quest for Jama's father. It is also very much the story of Jama's journey to manhood.I love how the character of Jama was so completely rendered. I loved how he grew as a person as his world expanded. Each new experience seemed to change him and become a part of him.This book caused me to reflect on how our experiences change us, become a part of the fabric of who we are.
    • 3/5
      Jama is a young boy living on the streets of Yemen in 1935. His father disappeared years ago and when his mother dies, Jama sets out in search of him. He travels all the way to Egypt, having many adventures, meeting outrageous characters, and eventually learning what is really important to him in life. Jama witnesses and participates in historic events and provides a very different perspective on some of the important happenings of that time.Jama is a likable fellow and I enjoyed traveling with him. He is often funny, sometimes deeply thoughtful, and attracts some interesting people. For me the book was a little unbalanced. I would have preferred a bit less of Jama's search for his father and for wealth and bit more time after he has his epiphany. I felt like I went through all his trials with him only to have the book end before he fully realizes his triumph! Still, the humor and armchair travel make this book worth reading.I listened to Black Mamba Boy on audio. Kevin Kenerly is the narrator and he has a deep, almost breathy voice that adds to the mystery and atmosphere of the story.