Under the Neem Tree

A young girl grows jealous of her mother’s lemon tree, which may be more sentient than she knows. A college student confronts tragedies past and present when police attack a university protest. A lawyer desperately searches the city for a woman claiming to have been sent from the Hereafter.

In her second collection of stories after Thirteen Months of Sunrise, which was named a finalist for the 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the unique voice of Sudanese writer and poet Rania Mamoun is on full display. Under the Neem Tree, her first collection to be published in the United States, now in a wonderful translation by Elisabeth Jaquette, is a powerful and intimate collection that blends fiction with memoir to create a rich, multifaceted portrait of Sudanese women—one with a magical edge.

From unexpected love to political defiance, Mamoun brings tenderness and a poetic sensibility to tales of human connection. Grounded in the reality of life and politics in Sudan, while also laced with elements of the surreal and uncanny, these twelve stories will be embraced by fans of Claire Keegan and Marie NDiaye, and by English-language readers eager for emotionally intimate characters, deeply human stories, and a striking, unique voice.