-
ABOUT SWEETNESS IN THE BELLY
Sweetness in the Belly is a richly detailed portrayal of one woman’s search for love and belonging. Set in Emperor Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia and the racially charged world of Thatcher’s London, it is a deeply imagined immersion into the lives of people for whom war, poverty, marginalization and exile are commonplace.
Told by Lilly, a compellingly young white Muslim woman, whose nomadic parents left her with a legacy of intense and varied cultural bonds, the novel addresses the pain of immigration, the beauty of sharing unfamiliar customs and the horror of seeing one's home country in tatters. Sweetness in the Belly is also a beautiful and poetic love story.
According to the Literary Review of Canada, Sweetness in the Belly is “…a novel that is culturally sensitive, consummately researched and deeply compassionate…richly imagined, full of sensuous detail and arresting imagery…Gibb has smuggled Western readers into the centre of lives they might never otherwise come into contact with, let alone understand.”We hope you will come on the journey with us.
-
Author BioCamilla GibbAuthor
Camilla Gibb is the author of four internationally acclaimed novels: Mouthing the Words, The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, Sweetness in the Belly and The Beauty of Humanity Movement, and most recently a memoir, This Is Happy. She has been the recipient of the Trillium Book Award, the City of Toronto Book Award and the CBC Canadian Literary Award and has been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2016 RBC Taylor Prize.
Camilla has a Ph.D. in social
anthropology from Oxford University and has been writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is an adjunct faculty member of the graduate creative writing programs at the University of Guelph-Humber, the University of Toronto and the Humber School for Writers and is currently the June Callwood Professor in Social Justice at Victoria College, University of Toronto.
Photo: Brock Weir
-
IF YOU LIKED...If you liked Sweetness in the Belly, you may like the following:
![Brick Lane / Monica Ali]( "Brick Lane / Monica Ali")
![The Kite Runner / Khaled Hosseini]( "The Kite Runner / Khaled Hosseini")
![The Beauty of Humanity Movement / Camilla Gibbs]( "The Beauty of Humanity Movement / Camilla Gibbs")
![The Namesake / Jhumpa Lahiri]( "The Namesake / Jhumpa Lahiri")
![The Space Between Us / Thrity Umrigar]( "The Space Between Us / Thrity Umrigar")
![The God of Small Things / Arundhati Roy]( "The God of Small Things / Arundhati Roy")
![The Swallows of Kabul / Yasmina Khadra]( "The Swallows of Kabul / Yasmina Khadra")
![The Golden Son / Shilpi Somaya Gowda]( "The Golden Son / Shilpi Somaya Gowda")
![Island of a Thousand Mirrors / Nayomi Munaweera]( "Island of a Thousand Mirrors / Nayomi Munaweera")
-
UPCOMING EVENTSPlease check back in the Spring for OBOA event listings.WRITE FOR RIGHTSSaturday September 14, 2019Aurora Public Library, Living Room, 10:00 amMeet your local Aurora/Newmarket Amnesty group for a drop-in letter-writing session and discover how the act of sending a simple
message can help a political prisoner.Family Storytime: 10:30 - 11:00 am
Art Activities: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Information Table: 10:00 am - 12:00 pmOBOA Writing ContestContest deadline: Sept 27, 2019, 5:00 pmAurora Public LibraryAfter her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco. As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia, where she teaches Qur’an to children. But even swathed in a traditional headscarf, Lilly can’t escape being marked as a foreigner. Forced to flee Ethiopia for England, she must confront the riddle of who she is and where she belongs.
This year’s OBOA Writing Contest invites you to consider the meaning of “Home” focusing on your sense of place, migration, home or lack of home.
Feel free to interpret the theme of this contest in any way that speaks to you, keeping in mind the overarching theme of “Home”.
Send your entry to: writingcontest@aurorapl.ca
OBOA Photography ContestContest deadline: Sept 27, 2019, 5:00 pmAuroran NewspaperIn Sweetness in the Belly, Lilly is sent to live with a poor family where she earns her keep teaching local children the Qur’an. Throughout the novel, children are featured in the book.
This year’s OBOA Photography Contest invites you to capture children in the act of discovery.
Feel free to interpret the theme of this contest in any way that
speaks to you. Send your entry to: brock@auroran.comCharacter Developmentwriting workshopDATE: Saturday September 28, 2019, 1:30 pmAurora Public Library, Living RoomIf you were a country, what country would you be?Image Ocean. Spirit Desert. Secret County. Gloomy Trees.
Using maps as our medium and motif, discover a treasure trunk of character traits, historical idiosyncrasies and circumstances as you travel through the interior world of a person.
This workshop is suited for all levels of writers working with the genres of memoir, creative non-fiction, fiction, or poetry. The activities will add depth to your knowledge and understanding of a character you are already developing, or they will spark the beginnings of a new one.Reserve your spot at bit.ly/2G9RECh
Registration opens Aug 1African Drum Circle with Shaw PercussionSaturday September 28, 2019, 2:00 pmAurora Public Library, Living RoomLearn how to play the djembe, feel the rhythms and become
drum circle ready!
Warning: Exposure to drumming may cause a sudden
outburst of happiness, energy and a desire to dance.
Enjoy at your own risk!
DIFRET: Film ScreeningThursday October 3, 2019, 7:00 pmAurora Public Library, Magna RoomDIFRET has many shades of meaning in Ethiopia's native language, Amharic. It can mean "to dare" and "to have courage" but it can also mean "to be violated."
Like its title, the film represents many things. It's a work of fiction based on a true story of courage and change; it's one of the only films from Ethiopia shot on 35mm film; and it received international recognition in the form of executive producer Angelina Jolie Pitt. But above all, DIFRET tells the story about a traditional practice through the experience of one frightened girl caught in a whirlwind beyond her control.
DIFRET was written and directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, an award winning filmmaker who is currently producing and directing the film adaption of the book, Sweetness in the Belly (2019).Reserve your free ticket at bit.ly/2GaPhiA
Sweetness in the Belly:a philosophical conversationThursday October 17, 2019, 7:00 pmAurora Public Library, Magna RoomJoin us for a discussion led by Ronen Grunberg on Sweetness in the Belly. Lilly, the main character in the book is the perpetual outsider, illustrating the alienation and longing of those who never feel at home anywhere. In Ethiopia, she is the white-skinned “faranj”; in England, the disconnected exile.
Using Lilly’s life experiences as the basis of our discussion, we will examine the history and philosophy of social alienation and the importance of cultural identity to the formation of the self through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber and Friedrich Nietzsche.Reserve your free ticket at bit.ly/2WRDF9D
Tickets available Aug 1
Meet Camilla GibbDATE: Saturday November 2, 2019, 2:00 pmAurora Public Library, Living Room
Meet Camila Gibb and enjoy a fascinating glimpse into the storybehind the story.Reserve your free ticket at bit.ly/2UK9iEE
Tickets available Aug 1 -
GET A COPY OF THE BOOK
Look for copies of Sweetness in the Belly in our little lending libraries around Town this summer. Enjoy the book, but please return it so that others might read it as well.
And of course, print copies are available to borrow from Aurora Public Library and online through OverDrive and cloudLibrary.
We hope you enjoy the book and look forward to seeing you at the events.
-
BOOK CLUBSSweetness in the BellyBook Club Discussion Questions
- Discuss Lilly’s role as an outsider and her struggle for acceptance both as a farenji in Harar and as a white Muslim in London. Who else in the novel could be considered an outsider?
- What do the words “family” and “home” mean to Lilly? How does her view of herself as an orphan evolve over the course of the novel?
- “Faith has accompanied me over time and geography and upheaval,” says Lilly. For her, love and Islam “have always been one.” Did Sweetness in the Belly in any way alter or broaden your understanding of Islam? Consider, for instance, the notion of jihad or holy war.
- Sweetness in the Belly alternates between Harar, Ethiopia, in the 70s, and London, England, in the 80s and early 90s. What qualities does this crosscutting of time and place impart to the narrative?
- In the chapter entitled “Exile,” Lilly observes that “the smell of coffee draws women together, an olfactory call throughout a neighbourhood luring women from their homes to gather…” Later in the chapter, the act of twisting a mortar over coffee beans and cardamom triggers in her a surge of nightmarish images from the Red Terror. Of the many lush sensory details in the novel – both fair and foul – which affected you the most?
- While living in Ethiopia, Camilla Gibb witnessed a female circumcision. A doctoral student in social anthropology at the time, she says she had to “understand it in the context of the community in which it was taking place, and not judge.” When Nouria’s daughters are circumcised in Sweetness in the Belly, how does Lilly react as the only Western-born character in the scene? How did you react as a reader?
- Based on your reading of Sweetness in the Belly, what feelings and psychological states are associated with the experience of exile? How do Amina and Yusuf, for example, cope with their respective traumas?
- In Harar, Aziz is called a “black savage, African slave, barbarian, pagan.” In London, Lilly is called a “white fu’in Paki.” Discuss the notion of “otherness” in the novel. How do artificial divisions manifest themselves based on ethnicity, class, race, religion and gender?
- Discuss the ways in which the female characters ensure their survival and empower themselves despite the gender divisions within their communities.
- What does Lilly mean when she says that Aziz “unveiled” her? How does she reconcile her love for him with her love of Islam?
- There can be criticism about tackling a culture different from one’s own, but Camilla Gibb was never been accused of cultural appropriation. Do you think this is because of her background as an academic social anthropologist?
