# Black Mamba Boy (2010) by Nadifa Mohamed: a Somali boy's journey, 1935 to 1947

> Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy (2010): Jama's journey from Aden to Wales, based on her father's life, the title's story, and its prizes.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/books/black-mamba-boy-mohamed/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## The book

**Black Mamba Boy** is the first novel by [Nadifa Mohamed](/en/people/nadifa-mohamed/). It was published by HarperCollins in the UK in 2010 and by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the United States ([Black Mamba Boy, Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)). It is a historical novel based on the life of the author's father in the 1930s and 1940s ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)).

## The story

The main character, **Jama**, is a boy living in Aden, in Yemen, in 1935. When his mother Ambaro dies, he sets out to find his father. His journey takes him through [Sudan](/en/diaspora/sudan/), Egypt and Palestine, across the Mediterranean, and ends at Port Talbot in Wales in 1947, and he settles in Britain ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)).

## The title

The title comes from a family story the author has told: her grandmother, while pregnant, was separated from her caravan, and a black mamba crept over her belly and slid away without harming her. She took it as a sign that the child was protected ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)).

## How it was received

- Won the **2010 Betty Trask Award** for a first novel ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)).
- Shortlisted for the 2010 Guardian First Book Award, the 2010 Dylan Thomas Prize and the 2010 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and longlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)).
- Reviewed in The Independent by Arifa Akbar in 2010 ([Wikipedia, references](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mamba_Boy)).

Her next novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls (2013), is set in Hargeysa in 1987 to 1988, and her third, [The Fortune Men](/en/books/the-fortune-men-mohamed/) (2021), in [Cardiff](/en/diaspora/cardiff/) in 1952.

## Where to read it

- Lending copy: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/blackmambaboy00moha)
- In a library: [WorldCat](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=Black+Mamba+Boy+Nadifa+Mohamed)

## Related pages

- [Nadifa Mohamed](/en/people/nadifa-mohamed/)
- [Somali seamen and early migrants](/en/diaspora/somali-seamen-and-early-migrants/)
- [Somali authors and their books](/en/society/somali-authors-and-their-books/)

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