Since the publication of her first novel while she was still in her twenties, Nadifa Mohamed has been a writer to watch.
Her second novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, won her the Somerset Maugham Award and gave her a place on the prestigious Granta List of Best Young Novelists.
She’s about to publish her third novel, and is also turning it into an opera – a commission from the Royal Opera House.
What’s striking in all her work is the epic sweep of her storytelling, which explores themes of exile and survival: her characters are caught up by war and love.
Nadifa herself left Somali-land in northern Somalia when civil war broke out and she was only four when she came to Britain in 1985.
