Gifts is Duniya’s story. She is a single mother of two with a demanding job at the maternity hospital in war-torn Mogadiscio, and she has to battle for independence and self-sufficiency. An impossible load at the hospital, the food shortages, the war and the narrow constraints of Islamic society pin her down. Then, just as she reluctantly gets romantically involved with the charming and wealthy Basaaso, her daughter brings home a mysterious abandoned baby.
Part love story, part mystery, the plot turns on the idea of gifts and the price you pay for accepting them. Ranging from a simple cooking pot to the cargoes of food-aid dumped in Somalia, and even to Duniya’s gift of her sexuality, Gifts is a complex and fascinating reflection on giving and receiving, written in a surprisingly seductive, opulently lyrical style.
