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Somali-born writer and winner of the Betty Trask prize Nadifa Mohamed discusses her new novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, with Guardian literary editor Claire Armitstead. The novel follows the fate of three women caught up in Soimalia’s civil war – nine-year-old refugee Deqo lured to the city by a promise of a first pair of shoes, solitary widow Kawsar trapped in a little house and confined to her bed after a beating at a police station, and young female soldier Filsan fighting to suppress a rebellion in the north.

Mohamed’s first novel, Black Mamba Boy, won the Betty Trask prize. She was born in Somalia in 1981, leaving the troubled country with her family in 1986 in what was meant to be a temporary move but which turned out to be permanent. Both Mohamed and Armitstead are graduates of St Hilda’s College and this event is part of St Hilda’s Day at the festival.