Sweetness In The Belly

Nov 15, 2025 2:31 PM

Author:Camilla Gibb

A richly imagined tale of one woman's search for love and belonging.

In Thatcher's London, Lilly, a white Muslim nurse, struggles in a state of invisible exile. As Ethiopian refugees gradually fill the flats of the housing estate where she lives, Lilly tentatively begins to share with them her longing for the home she herself once had in Africa and her heartbreaking search for her missing lover.

Back in Haile Selassie's Ethiopia, the young Lilly, born in the 1950s to British parents, now orphaned and full of religious conviction, finds herself living in the city of Harar. She is drawn to the idealistic young doctor, Aziz, himself an outsider in the community. But then convulsions of a new revolutionary order separate them, sending Lilly to an England she has never seen, while Aziz disappears.

Reviews

This is a profound novel, exploring themes of female circumcision, politics, war, tribalism, yet it is also an exquisite homage to Islam

—— Bernardine Evaristo , Guardian

Camilla Gibb....burrows deep into the lives of her characters, finding the universal in the exotic

—— Kate Saunders , The Times

A passionate and humane story about people for whom displacement, poverty and war are everyday trials...Gibb, singled out as one of the Orange Futures writers, is one to watch

—— Sheila Hamilton , Glasgow Evening Times

Gibb's understanding of this world seems almost uncanny but it is her compassion for her characters that impressed me the most. [Sweetness in the Belly] challenges and disturbs as it enlightens and uplifts. A really exceptional achievement

—— Barbara Gowdy

Sweetness In The Belly is remarkable for its geographic, thematic and historic amplitude and breadth, depicting the multi-cultural and modern world. Gibb...is certainly one to watch.

—— Birmingham Post

The high mid-summer pomps of tree and flower are evoked with gusto

—— - , The Times Literary Supplement

I really enjoyed Pay It Forward and its powerful message. I very much admire the work and philosophy of Catherine Ryan Hyde and I thank her for what she is doing and for what she is writing. It's a powerful reminder of the difference one person can make.

—— President Bill Clinton

Karoo is a very good and very funny novel of the old-fashioned American kind, the tragi-comic story - familiar from Philip Roth and JP Donleavy - of a selfish but vulnerable and oddly lovable monster whose own shortcomings don't disqualify him from saying some sharp things about the hypocrisies of the allegedly better-balanced types who despise him

—— Herald

Adulterous alcoholic and pathological liar, it is, nevertheless, hard not to love Karoo, whose sardonic observations are both poignant and extremely funny. This is comic writing at its best. Clever, well crafted and proof that Tesich was master of the medium

—— The Times

Brilliantly funny in its early chapters, but also very wise, the virtuosic irony turns to bitterness as a tragic story develops. Tesich died just after completing this marvellous, heart-felt valediction.

—— Scotland on Sunday

A sad novel with a jaunty, upbeat tone that disguises the tragedy of Tesich's magnetic characters

—— Observer

A feisty read you won't want to put down

—— Woman

A must-read for empty nesters ... this is Trollope at her most poignant

—— Guernsey Now

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