Article Summary
Melissa Oliver praises Khadro Mohamed’s debut novel, “Before the Winter Ends,” highlighting its unique storyline, well-developed characters, and lyrical prose. The novel explores themes of grief, identity, and language through the eyes of a mother and son, Omar and Asha, and their experiences in Wellington, Cairo, and Mogadishu.
What This Means for You
- Experience a poetic and thought-provoking novel that captures the intricacies of the human condition.
- Explore themes of grief, identity, and language through diverse characters and settings.
- Discover new perspectives on disconnection and exclusion due to language barriers.
- Celebrate the Māori culture and the impact of language in shaping one’s identity.
- Support and engage with a growing and talented literary voice, Khadro Mohamed.
Original Post
Melissa Oliver revels in poet Khadro Mohamed’s debut novel. Have you ever been halfway through a book and needed to pause and sit with it for a minute to take in the fact that this will be your only first time reading it? Like you already know it will be a book you go back to again and again, but in this moment it will be the only time it is new to you. I had this while reading Khadro Mohamed’s debut novel Before the Winter Ends: it took me a long time to finish reading because I wanted to draw out that beautiful first-time experience.
I pondered for a long time how I was going to write this review. I’d lost any sense of how to form a coherent thought or sentence. It is a book that completely took me away from my own life and my own ways of seeing the world. It’s unlike anything I’ve read for a long time and will be a novel that a lot of people will not know they’ve been waiting for.
This is a novel of three parts: the first is set in 2019 Wellington, and follows two characters, Omar and his mother Asha. When we first meet Omar, he is struggling: at university; with maintaining friendships; at speaking Arabic and Somali; at connecting to his whakapapa and to his father; at connecting to Somalia; and he is struggling to look after his mother Asha who is ill with “it”.
As the novel continues, we slip back to 1999 and to Cairo and Mogadishu to follow Asha and her relationship with Omar’s father. In part three we move to 2019 Cairo to where Asha returns, and Omar visits for the first time. At its core, this novel is the story of a mother and son and the canyons of space, time, history and grief between them.
At just under 300 pages, this novel manages to carry a lot of grief. It runs through every page; you can feel it simmering away behind the words. The grief comes in many forms and are woven through the novel – a longing for a home you have lost or have never known; mourning a parent you never knew; a loss of language you feel you should speak; a desire to connect with people who don’t understand you.
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