Title: The Orchard of Lost Souls Author: Nadifa Mohamed
Published: March 4, 2014
Genre(s): Literary Fiction
Page Count: 352
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:It is 1988 and Hargeisa waits. Whispers of revolution travel on the dry winds but still the dictatorship remains secure. Soon, and through the eyes of three women, we will see Somalia fall.
Nine-year-old Deqo has left the vast refugee camp she was born in, lured to the city by the promise of her first pair of shoes.
Kawsar, a solitary widow, is trapped in her little house with its garden clawed from the desert, confined to her bed after a savage beating in the local police station.
Filsan, a young female soldier, has moved from Mogadishu to suppress the rebellion growing in the north.
And as the country is unravelled by a civil war that will shock the world, the fates of the three women are twisted irrevocably together.
In the days leading up to the Somali Civil War, three women’s paths intersect. Deqo, an orphan living on the streets; Kawsar, a well-off, bedridden widow; Filsan, a female soldier and poster-child for the regime. All three have seemingly nothing in common, but the rebellion taking place in Hargeisa causes these unlikely acquaintances to, finally, meet.
The Orchard of Lost Souls was a surprisingly fast-paced character-driven novel. I flew through this one in a matter of hours, spurred on by the author’s simple, readable prose, and the looming action that I just new was coming. The United States’ publishing world doesn’t get to see a lot of fiction about Africa (especially by Africans), and the novelty of topic definitely scored major points.
All three of the women Nadifa Mohamed writes about in this book are well-rounded and detailed. They come from different walks of life, have virtually nothing in coming besides their nationality. What this does, though, is allow The Orchard of Lost Souls to examine these events from many perspectives. Though I’m sure this book would have been quite good with just one of these characters as the protagonist, having all three really broadens the scope. I thought that was a very wise deicision.
Interestingly, though the jacket copy makes it sound as if the three women are a part of each other’s lives for much of the book, that isn’t the case. All three meet (sort of) in the initial scene, but spend the bulk of the book (about 250 pages) apart, not even knowing who each other are. Then they reconnect for the finale hurrah. Honestly, the format of The Orchard of Lost Souls kind of threw me for a loop, but I think it worked out in the end. Mohamed is such a talented writer that she managed to incorporate all three main characters’ stories into the book seamlessly, even though for much of the book they seemed unrelated.
Prior to reading this book, I had not been aware of the Somali Civil War or any of the turmoil that characterized Somalia’s post-colonial existence, though these events are recent enough that I feel I should have heard about them at some point. In either case, I can’t say how accurate Mohamed’s portrayal of the fighting in Hargeisa is, but it felt very real to me, and very plausible. Probably the most raw, emotional scene in the book is when the military doctors take children and drain them of blood, killing them so they’ll have enough blood for their wounded soldiers. Just…wow.
Though it’s an easy read, The Orchard of Lost Souls does not lack in impact or complexity. Nadifa Mohamed’s writing is smooth and deceptively simple—I’m sure she worked very hard to make it that way. I’m very impressed by this book and everything it represents.
