Review of Reem Gaafar’s A Mouth Full of Salt, Invisible Publishing, 2025
Written by Michelle Hardy
In her debut novel, A Mouth Full of Salt (Invisible Publishing 2025), author, physician, and filmmaker Reem Gaafar inspires readers to study some of the complex history between Sudan and South Sudan. Gaafar’s novel zigzags along the fringes of western science and cultural belief; contemplates how the Nile gives but also takes away; and challenges how formal education compares with life experience. Gaafar moderates these intersections with sensitivity and care. The tales of her three female protagonists are fantastically “Other” while also domestically mundane. Each woman is affected by the actions of her family, her community, and her government. However, none of the women are simple representations of any of these assemblies. Originating from a story Gaafar heard years ago about a child who died under the care of his grandparents, A Mouth Full of Salt has grown into an award-winning novel about ordinary people experiencing multifaceted tragedies while living complex lives.
Part I opens in 1989 Sudan. A village on the Nile is deluged with misfortune. The geopolitical climate of the country teems with disaster as well. Because the Nile flooded catastrophically the year before, the prime minister’s radiobroadcasts call for people to stay strong and support one another through this year’s tough economic times. Here we meet Fatima, a teenage girl awaiting high school exam results that could deliver her from witchy superstitious rural life to the city: “where there were the young and old women in their sparkling white tobs; carrying their handbags; walking to and from their workplaces at government offices, the bank, the training institutes, and the post office.” The details of urban women’s attire and occupations kindle Fatima’s hope and desire, but it is the pronoun “their” which catches my eye. By emphasizing “their handbags” or “their workplaces” Fatima draws my attention to her belief that educated women enjoy some freedom and individual rights. Additionally, Gaafar’s descriptors “young and old” confirm that the education of Sudanese women is not a new concept. Next, we meet Sulafa— a wife and mother who returns from a journey to find women weeping over the potential drowning of her child who was left in the care of her in-laws. Or at least, they are pretending to weep. Drama ensues as strands of western science and education swirl around a shadowy outsider suspected of sorcery. Gaafar drops clues that could be fact or fiction and sometimes submerges a storyline for so long I forget about it, until mention of a character bubbles up again and reminds me there are still mysteries remaining to be solved. Chaos reigns throughout this novel. Patriarchal principles are tested by women’s rights. Flames lick at the livelihood of a village. And through all the spectacle and commotion unnoticeably rolls a mail truck, containing Fatima’s highly anticipated high school exam results.
Part II shifts the narrative frame to 1943. Characters jounce back and forth between South Sudan and Sudan. Newly married Nyamakeem, Gaafar’s third female protagonist, finds herself assaulted by racism, language barriers, family members, and shame. The culture and beliefs of the Arabic North, the African South, and Christianity collide. Time passes until readers arrive at the peak of Nyamakeem’s crises set against the 1956 backdrop of a politically violent, post-colonial Sudan. Part III concludes with shocking confessions and wearied discussions of systemic racism and tribal politics. Education remains up in the air while western aid, wearing “shiny shoes” a “leather belt” and an “ironed shirt tucked into ironed trousers” bumbles into the village on the back of an ass.
Fabric is the most recurrent element in my notes for A Mouth Full of Salt. Clothes are tied to politics, race, and religion. Garments set people apart: women wear tobs in the North, lawas in the South, and the shoulder over which fabric is draped matters. In scenes of distress and deliberation, Gaafar draws my attention to discrepancies between characters’ head coverings. For example, as village men await the macabre emergence of the body of the boy who may have drowned, “opinions appear to rank in importance and authority according to the size and height of the speaker’s turban.” In this scene, the missing boy’s father stands noticeably apart from the others. He wears a cap, not a turban, and does not join the men’s discussion. Gaafar does not elaborate on the cap, leaving readers to their own conclusions. In another instance, Fatima’s uneducated, camel-trading, prospective young husband recalls rumours he’s heard about the city where “women walked around with their heads uncovered and sat next to men in university halls and parks and buses. He wondered if Fatima would do the same if she left the village to study in Khartoum. He wondered if he would mind.” I admire how this unschooled young man contemplates the possibility of his future wife’s education. When (if) ambitious young Fatima marries this potentially progressive young man, she will receive fabrics, passed down through the matriarchy to her.
In Fatima’s village, hazards of fire and water abound, and venomous scorpions skitter about— one more peril Gaafar employs repeatedly to wrack my readerly nerves. I keep wondering which character is going to get bit. Late in the novel, after confessions have been made and secrets revealed, an unaccompanied Fatima rushes out into the night. Her prospective young husband sees her and frowns: “Why are you running down the street like a boy? And at his time? It’s almost dark. And there are scorpions everywhere.” Fatima responds with stinging insolence and in a flash, the young man kicks off his sandal. Fatima gasps and raises her arm to ward off what she assumes will be a blow.
Although danger courses through everyone’s lives, risks associated with childbirth are exacerbated. Reem Gaafar, who is also a physician, handles the subject of female genital mutilation (FGM) with a firm but compassionate touch. Sulafa laments how the practice is “one of the many intolerable burdens of their womanhood that plagued their existence, and one which they continued to inflict on their own daughters despite all the misery it caused them in every stage of their lives.” As I read details of a young mother suffering through horrific FGM-related childbirth complications, I am also confounded this practice endures. With a subtle nod toward its possible eradication, Gaafar’s character Sulafa vows never to let a daughter, should she ever be blessed to have one, “go through such a thing.”
Traditions of the past mesh with potential for future change. This notion pervades Gaafar’s novel, and the two-for-one concept is nowhere more aptly contained than in the title A Mouth Full of Salt. This phrase embodies an ancient Sudanese proverb describing the taste in one’s mouth after a great loss. However, Gaafar also uses salt to alternative effect. While hiding in the city and struggling to make ends meet, an ostracized Nyamakeem meets a friendly couple and invites them for dinner. As she prepares a humble meal, her guests present their hostess gift: a pouch of Kombo salt. Nyamakeem squeals with delight. She “could not remember the last time she had enjoyed a meal so much. With the unique distilled salt—so out of place in Khartoum—the Kombo dish was elevated to another level, and she ate happily as she listened to her new friends describing their aspirations for their new life in the North.” Nyamakeem’s future is uncertain. Fear threatens to drown or suffocate her, perhaps like a mouth full of salt. But this small gift temporarily alleviates her distress, evokes faded memories, and conjures for her, a taste of home.
A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaarfar (Invisible Publishing, 2025)
Reem Gaafar is a writer, physician, and filmmaker. Her writing has appeared in African Arguments, African Feminism, Teakisi, Andariya and 500 Words Magazine, among other outlets. Her short story “Light of the Desert” was published in I Know Two Sudans. Her short story “Finding Descartes” was published in Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices. A Mouth Full of Salt is her debut novel and Winner of the 2023 Island Prize. Gaafar lives in Canada with her husband and three sons.
Michelle Hardy is a professional freelance developmental editor and book reviewer.
Michelle transitioned to a freelance developmental editing career after retiring as a high school English teacher. She completed a master’s degree in English at the University of Regina in 2012, and obtained an editing certificate from Simon Fraser University in 2021. A member of Editors Canada and the Editorial Freelancers Association, she lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Michelle’s book reviews have been published in print and online in Atticus Review, Freefall Magazine, The Malahat Review, Prism Magazine, Event Magazine, On the Seawall, and Arc Poetry. Michelle also includes brief reviews of literature @mhardy_editor on Instagram.