First published 2011
Jama scrounges for scraps in the bustling streets of a Yemeni port city in 1935. The half-wild child lives by his wits alongside other market boys, finding joy in small victories like a full stomach. When his volatile mother dies, she leaves him only an amulet containing one hundred rupees and stories about his absent father. Jama learns his father works as a driver for the British somewhere in the north. He spends his mother's savings to begin an epic quest that will carry him over a thousand miles through the Horn of Africa to Egypt. The boy travels by camel, truck, and train, but mostly walks. He leaps between dangerous cities, sustained by his clan connections and his own fierce appetite for adventure. His father remains always just out of reach, a day or two ahead. Along the way, Jama encounters both cruelty and kindness. War sweeps him into its machinery. He crosses the Red Sea repeatedly, chasing work papers and passage on ships. Through it all, he maintains his wild joy in simply being alive.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, coming-of-age, africa
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: epic-journey, fish-out-of-water, quest
Setting: Egypt, Horn of Africa, Yemen
Period: 1935
304 pages · Paperback · Picador
Content warnings: war