This is the extraordinary first-person account of a young woman's coming of age in Somalia and her struggles
against the obligations and strictures of family and society. By the time she is nine, Aman has undergone a ritual
circumcision ceremony; at eleven, her innocent romance with a white boy leads to a murder; at thirteen she is given
away in an arranged marriage to a stranger. Aman eventually runs away to Mogadishu, where her beauty and rebellious
spirit leads her to the decadent demimonde of white colonialists. Hers is a world in which women are both chattel
and freewheeling entrepreneurs, subject to the caprices of male relatives, yet keenly aware of the loopholes that
lead to freedom. Aman is an astonishing history, opening a window onto traditional Somali life and the universal
quest for female self-awareness.