Silence is my mother tongue

Saba, the novel's heroine, arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl.

In this crowded and often hostile place, she must carve out her new existence.

As she struggles to maintain her sense of self, she remains protective of her mute brother Hagos.

This novel is an extraordinary portrait of a woman of courage and intelligence and a compelling story of exile, survival, and love.

The author questions what it means to be a man, to be a woman, to be an individual when circumstance has forced the loss of all that makes a home and the possibility of a future.

It's about love in a time of conflict, incisively dissecting society's ability to wage war on its own women and exploring the stories we must tell and absorb to survive, cementing Addonia as a gifted literary talent whose stories reach across enforced borders towards the universal conflicts of the human heart.