A Mouth Full of Salt

Reem Gaafar

From Shelf: Official Indie Fiction Bestsellers (week 13, 2025)

In a North Sudanese village plagued by tragedy and rumour, sixteen-year-old Fatima watches as tensions rise and lives unravel. In Khartoum, a woman is forced to return home as war looms. A Mouth Full of Salt explores womanhood, resistance and change in a land where old prophecies meet new realities.

A small farming village in North Sudan wakes up one morning to the news that a little boy has drowned. Soon after, the animals die of a mysterious illness and the date gardens catch fire and burn to the ground. The villagers whisper of a sorceress who dwells at the foot of the mountains. It is the dry season. The men have places to go, the women have work to do, the children play at the place where the river runs over its own banks. Sixteen-year-old Fatima yearns to leave the village for Khartoum. In Khartoum, a single mother makes her way in a world that wants to keep girls and women back. As civil war swells, the political intrudes into the personal and her position in the capital becomes untenable. She must return to the village. A Mouth Full of Salt uncovers a country on the brink of seismic change as its women decide for themselves which traditions are fit for purpose - and which prophecies it's time to rewrite.

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