Emanuela Anechoum

Tangerinn follows Mina, a thirty-year-old woman who has built a carefully controlled life in London in an attempt to escape her past. When her Moroccan-born father, Omar, dies unexpectedly, she returns to her childhood home in Calabria, southern Italy, intending to attend his funeral. Instead, she finds herself staying longer than planned, drawn back into the family and community she once left behind. Omar ran a small beach bar called the Tangerinn, a gathering place for migrants and outsiders who struggled to find acceptance in their new home. As Mina reconnects with the people who knew her father, she begins to uncover the complexities of his past and question how well she truly understood him. Her journey becomes an exploration of the parallels between their lives: both left home in search of something better, yet neither could entirely escape the pull of their origins. Moving between Italy, Morocco, and London, Anechoum explores migration, family inheritance, cultural identity, and the elusive meaning of belonging. The novel asks whether we can ever fully escape our past or whether understanding where we come from is essential to discovering who we are.