The novel for a displaced generation
[ About Tangerinn ]
Mina is thirty years old and leads a life in London built with great care and little spontaneity, in a frantic attempt to finally feel “right”. One evening she receives a phone call from her mother: her father has died.
Mina returns home for the funeral, but ends up staying. Home is a small seaside town where her Moroccan father ran a beach bar frequented mostly by immigrants, a place of refuge for those who didn’t feel welcome in this new land.
It’s here, in a place that doesn’t seem to belong to anyone, and where people too often appear like ghosts who pass and vanish, that Mina finds her family, and the memories of her father: the mythical, elusive, eternal migrant with a mysterious past. Here, Mina will discover that roots are just a fleeting dream, a desire to find oneself in a common history and shared affection that allows us to forget, at least at times, the ferocity of the world and the wounds of abandonment.
[ My Review ]
Tangerinn by Emanuela Anechoum published March 26th with Europa Editions UK. Translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand it was a New York Times and a LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2026. A very thought-provoking debut, Tangerinn is a story of family and culture as well as one of self-discovery for Mina, a thirty-year old woman who returns back home to Italy from London following the death of her father Omar.
Omar had arrived to Italy from Morocco as a young man with shattered dreams. He married a local girl, Berta, and established a bar where immigrants, like himself, were welcomed. Mina and her sister Aisha made up the family but, growing up, they always felt different from the neighbourhood children. ‘In the eyes of the people from the town, immigrants were all the same…When Aisha and I were little, you were an “extracomunitario”. That’s what people from outside the EU were called then.‘ This feeling of never belonging always hung in the air. Omar accepted his path after years of struggles but Mina remained unsettled. She moved to London but her life there was really no different. She felt like an outsider and, in truth, it was exhausting.
When Mina arrives back to Italy she dives deep into her memories, ones full of regret and sorrow. She never really got to know her father. She had spent years being embarrassed by his behaviour and the people he allowed into his bar. ‘I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to be like them, like you, I wanted to be normal.’ She was embarrassed by her mother, a woman who suffered mental health issues, never providing the guidance Mina craved. Mina had ran away from her family to start a new life in the UK but, now, on reflection, she can see parallels between her own life and that of her father.
Mina goes on a journey searching for answers within herself, from her sister and others around her. The reader is given a glimpse into the world that Omar was escaping from. We see him as a young boy who dreamed big but society let him down. As Mina comes to terms with her story and that of her family of origin, she starts to see the world a little differently. Always very harsh on herself Mina lives life battling with her inner demons. She has spent years running away from herself and her family, but now she finally stops and contemplates her life choices and the ones her father made. Is she really any different?
Tangerinn is an extremely relevant tale. The current movement of people across the globe due to war, hunger, fear, and for economic reasons, is staggering. As Omar’s story unravels, an alternative perspective is provided, one that is both heart-wrenching and powerful. Mina’s vulnerability is beautifully captured as she struggles to come to terms with her ethnicity and her humble beginnings. She has spent all her life angry, constantly running away but never truly finding peace. Now, back home, she must face her demons and attempt to find a balance in order to finally start living.
Tangerinn tackles multiple themes but it never feels overloaded. Anechoum doesn’t preach or dictate, but instead, with astute observations, skillfully immerses the reader into Mina’s mind and the struggles she encounters. A heartfelt debut, Tangerinn is a contemporary and introspective story, one that offers the reader an intimate portrayal of identity, grief and belonging, a potent debut.
‘I felt that my skin was different in a way I couldn’t explain; I was a mixture of things that each had nothing to do with the other. I was mixed, hybrid, polluted. I heard them whispering that my mother was strange, that she had taken an African into her bed…that she was crazy…that we were unnatural. I heard them, but maybe it was me who was whispering those things’
[ Thank you to Europa Editions UK for a copy of Tangerinn in exchange for my honest review ]
[ Bio ]
Emanuela Anechoum was born in Reggio Calabria in 1991 and lives in Rome. After her studies, she started working in the publishing world in London and later moved to Italy. She has written for Vice, Doppiozero, Marvin Rivista. Tangerinn, winner of the Selezione Bancarella 2024 Prize, is her first novel.
Lucy Rand is a literary translator, editor, and English-language teacher. Her translations include the international bestseller The Phone Box at the End of the World by Laura Imai Messina. She lives in Norwich, England.
