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Nuruddin Farah Hassan (b. 1945) |
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Somali novelist, writing in English and Somali. Nuruddin Farah's main subject is the tumultuous history of his country which he looks throught the fates of his characters. Among his central themes are the complexities of national identity and corruption in Somalia, and the women's liberation in postcolonial contexts. The majority of his essays, novels, short stories, plays, and film scripts are written in English, but he also translated children's stories from Arabic, Italian, French, and English into Somali. Farah received in 1998 the Neustadt Award. "Yes. You are a question to yourself. It is true. You've become a question to all those who meet you, those who know you, those who have any dealings with you. You doubt, at times, if you exist outside your own thoughts, outside your own head, or Misra's. It appears as though you were a creature given birth to by a notions formulated in heads, a creature brought into being by ideas; as though you were not a child born with the fortune or misfortune of its stars, a child bearing a name, breathing just like anybody else, a child whose activities were justifiably part of people's past and present. You exist, you think, the way the heavenly bodies exist, for although one does extend one's finger and point at the heavens, one knows, yes that's the word, one knows that that is not the heavens. Unless . . . unless there are, in a sense, as many heavens as there are thinking beings; unless there are as many heavens as there are pointing fingers." (Maps by Nuriddin Farah, New York: Penguin Books, 1999, p. 3; first published in the United States of America by Pantheon Books, 1986) Nuruddin Farah was born in Baidoa, a city in Italian Somaliland, which was at the time under British control. His father worked as a translator for the British. Soon after Nuruddin's birth he was transferred to work for the governor in the Ogaden (the Ethiopian West). In 1948 the British restored the Ogaden to Ethiopian rule, and a year later the recently formed United Nations returned the south to Italy. Farah received his primary education at schools in Kallafo, Ogden. Besides Somali, he spoke English (his chosen language of expression), Arabic, Italian, and Amharic, the official Ethiopian language. Somalia was granted independence by the British and Italians in
1960. Three years later Farah moved to the southern region to flee from
border conflicts in the Ogaden. In his childhood Farah wasn't much of a
reader, partly because the were no books for children in the Ogaden. He
read ad reread A Thousand and One Nights
several times. From his elder brother he got Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in
Arabic, and books in English, among them Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, and novels by Agatha Christie and Ernest
Hemingway, Neither of his parents owned books. In 1963 the family moed to Mogadiscio, to escape war in Ogden. Farah's mother was a well-known oral poet, and supported his literary effors, whereas his father later said that he would've been happier, if his son had become a clerk at a bank and brought home all his earnings. He died in a refugee camp in 1991. 'Why Dead So Soon?' (1965), Farah's first
longish short story, was published
in Somali News
– he penned it feverishly in hospital, waiting for an operation and
afraid of dying. After studying literature and philosophy in India at
the University of
Chandigarh in the Punjab, Farah returned to Somalia with his Indian
wife, Chitra
Muliyil. They settled in Mogadishu, where Farah worked first as a
secondary school teacher and then as a lecturer at the Somali National
University. Farah's first marriage ended in 1970. While still a student in the Punjab, Farah finished in less than a month-and-a-half his first novel, From a Crooked Rib
(1970). It appeared in the
famous Heinemann African Writers' Series. At that time Farah's
favorite authors were James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Virginia
Woolf, but reviews and criticism
emphasized the oral featues of the novel – Somali culture was almost
exclusively oral; poetry was right at the heart of the culture.
The central character is a nomad girl, Ebla, who flees her family's camp because she has been promised in marriage to an old man of forty-eight, "fit to be her father". Ebla's quest takes her first to a small town, and eventually she arrives in Mogadiscio. Farah's novel reveals the authoritarian role of the patriarchal clan system, in which women are exploited and denied individual rights. "'As it is, I have enough cuts on my body,' Ebla continued . . . She remembered yesterday's barbarous operation of circumcision and the day they operated upon her; she remembered also the day she lost her virginity, the pain she underwent, and how she had bled under Awill's manhadling." (Ibid., p. 163) The portrayal of Ebla and her experiences was so
convincing that the author received mail addressed to "Dear Ms Farah". (Reading Nuruddin Farah: The Individual, the Novel & the Idea of Home by F. Fiona Moolla, Woodbridge: James Currey, 2014, p. 2) Farah has said in an interview that "reading Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House just as I embarked on writing my first bovel, From a Crooked Rib, made me the writer, the person, I am at present." ('Nuruddin Farah: By the Book,' The New York Times, 13 Nov 2014) A few chapters of Farah's second novel appeared in Somali in
serialized form in a local newspaper in 1973, but when the government
found his work politically objectionable, it was was discontinued. His
writings were described as "a selection of untruths". In 1974 Farah
escaped from Somalia after authorities had condemned his second novel, A Naked Needle,
which eventually came out in 1976. Abroad at the time, he was warned by
his brother not to return home; it was the beginning of his 22-year exile. Siyad Barre's regime banned all of
his works in Somalia and ordered that the author be killed. "Somalia
was a badly written play," Farah though, "and Siyad Barre was its
author. To our chagrin, he was also the play's main actor, its centre
and theme; as an actor-producer, he played all the available roles. . .
. What does a writer do when he or she cannot write?" ('Why I Write' by Nuruddin Farah, in Emerging Perspectives on Nuruddin Farah by Derek Wright, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2002, p. 10)
For a period he lived in England, where he studied theatre at the University of
London and continued studies for one year the University of Essex. Between 1971 and 1980, Farah published
four books on Barre's dictatorship, "for posterity's sake, the true
history of a nation," as he said. (Ibid., p. 13) A Naked Needle explores the relationships of Somali men and
women with Westerners. The protagonist, Koschin, is a Mogadisho
teacher, whose favorite novel is Wole Soyinka's The Interpreters.
He has promised to marry an English girl while studying overseas. The
girl arrives in Somalia and expects Koschin to keep his promise. Farah
studies the crisis of Somali identity allegorically, and suggests that
women's lives are even more dominated by male authority since the
achievement of political independence. After this novel, Farah too up the practice of composing his novels in trilogies. The first trilogy, collectively titled Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship (1980-1983) draws parallels between the colonial practices and authoritarian regimes in postcolonial Somalia. Sweet and Sour Milk
(1980), the first part, about political terror, had some elements of a detective story. The novels tells of two twins, Loyaan, a
dentist, and Soyaan, a journalist, who dies mysteriously. In his
inquiry about his brother's death Loyaan finds out the Soyaan was a
member of an organization that aimed at overthrowing the regime. At the
end Loyaan is appointed ambassador of Yugoslavia, but
his fate is left open: just when he is about to leave to the airport, there is a knock on the door. Sweet and Sour Milk received the English-Speaking Union
Literary Award. Sardines
(1981) was praised for its consciousness of style. In the story an
editor of a national newspaper, Medina, is sacked. Like Beatrice Okoh in Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah (1987), she is a well-educated, modern woman, who resists patriarchal oppression. ('New Women and Old Myths in Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah and Farah's Sardines' by Patricia Alden, in Emerging Perspectives on Nuruddin Farah, pp. 359-380) Medina's husband, Samater, is lured to
become a minister by false promises. He rules his house with the iron
hand of traditional Islam and she fears that her daughter Ubax will be
forced to submit to the horrors of female circumcision. Maps (1986) is the first novel of a second trilogy, Blood in the Sun, that studies the scars of Somalia's recent history, violence and clan fanaticism, through multiple voices. Gifts
(1999) dealt with foreign aid. Duniya, a nurse at a maternity hospital,
is once widowed and once divorced. She has no intentions getting
entangled again – until she meets an American-educated economist
Bosaano, driving his cousin's taxi. "Suddenly
the two of them were exaggeratedly conscious of each other's presence,
aware of their physical proximity for the first time. Disregarding a
small crowd that out of curiosity had gathered around the car, Duniya
and Bosaaso touched, marvelling at having shared a life-and-death
experience, at having stopped in good time before crossing a
threshold." (Gifts, New York, NJ: Penguin Books, 2000, pp. 6-7; first published in the United States of America by Arcade Publishing, 1999) This novel offers the reader more optimistic view of the war-torn land than Maps, which focuses on the Ogaden war of 1977, and Secrets
(1998), the final instalment of the Blood in the Sun
trilogy. The state has crumbled after Siyad Barre's fall from power.
Again Farah ends the novel with the death of a father figure. The story opens with the words, "One corpse, three secrets!" (Secrets, New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998, p. 1) A young successful
businessman Kalaman learns the truth about himself and his family – he
is the result of a gang rape committed by members of a rival clan.
Kalaman lives in Mogadisho and one day his chidhood sweetheart,
Sholoongo, visits him and tells that she wants to procreate a child
with him. Sholoongo has a US citizenship, she has strange powers, she stays at his apartment, and
Kalaman suspects that she had an affair with his father. Farah's tells
the story from different viewpoints within the family – they all have
their own secrets and special relationship to Sholoongo and to forces
she represents. Kalaman: "We
say, in Somali, that you don't ask someone whom you know to tell you
about themselves. . . . Maybe by calling me a liar she hoped to club me
into a tight corner, so I would tell her everything she wanted me to,
no secret withheld." (Ibid., pp. 23-24) Kalamen rejects her but she sleeps with his grandfather Nonno, who dies. "One corpse. Three secrets," Farah finishes the story. (Ibid., p. 298) Farah moved to Los Angeles in 1979. He has held teaching positions at universities in Europa, the
United States, and Africa. He has lived also in Rome and Kaduna,
Nigeria. Farah asked himself in Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora
(2000): "what would become of us without mitigation, the kindly
interventions of our women?" Farah saw again his home country in 1996, but the civil
war prevented him
from settling down. "Even if I returned, I would still be in exile
because Somalia can't contain the experiences that I hve been exposed
to through living in so many different countries and continents." ('Introduction,' in Emerging Perspectives on Nuruddin Farah, p. xvi) In 1998 Farah moved to Capetown, South Africa, with
his second wife, the Nigerian writer and academic Amina Mama. Knots (2007), the second in a trilogy beginning with Links (2004), was about an exile's return to Mogadiscio, after twenty years in the United States, in the middle of a civil war. He is both an outsider and insider. The final volume, Crossbones, came out in 2011. Farah wrote it as he was commuting between Cape Town, Minneapolis, the USA, where he served as 2010-2012 Winton Chair in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, and Newcastle in England, where he was awarded a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship. After Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against his friend Salman Rushdie for the novel The Satanic Verses
(1988), Farah offered to mediate with the Islamic intellectual Ali Mazrui, perhaps best known for the television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage (1986), as a
way to break the deadlock. "Okay," Rushdie told Nuruddin, "but I'm not apologising
or withdrawing the book." (Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie, New York: Random House, 2012, p. 199) Farah's attempt failed: Islamic officials wanted more than he was willing to give. By the request of the Islamic Courts Union, Farah acted in August 2006 as an emissary between Somalia's two main warring factions, the transitional government army and the Islamists, supported by clan-based militiamen. His mission was cut short when Ethiopian troops invaded Mogadishu in December and expelled the Islamists. From his personal experience Farah drew the conclusion that both sides must give: "Most Somalis believe that the Islamists deserve a place at the table; they have been disempowered through invasion by an occupying force, which must withdraw, the sooner the better." ('My Life as a Diplomat,' New York Times, May 26, 2007) North of Dawn
(2018) is Farah's 13th novel. Differing from fiction, in which
fundamentalists are portrayed as living on the edge of society, it
gives to a jihadi a family that tries to hold itself together
after he kills
himself in a suicide attack in Somali. "Farah has a rare genius for taking an issue so
weighty it might scare off a lesser writer and relating it with
stunning clarity." ('The human side of headlines' by N. M. [Nicholas Mancusi], Time, December 10, 2018)
Farah approaches Islam with respect. He has argued that "Islam is most
peculiarly more tolerant of Christianity than Christianity of Islam,"
but he admits that "there are many varieties of Islam too, and there is
more enmity between Muslims than there is between Christians." ('Nuruddin Farah Interviewed by Armando Pajalich' by Armando Pajalich, in Kunapipi, 15, 1993, pp. 61-71) For further reading: Contemporary Somali Diasporic Literature: Ambivalent Belonging and Phobic Cosmopolitanism by Denish Odanga (2025); Literature of the Somali Diaspora: Space, Language and Resistance in Somali Novels in English and Italian by Marco Medugno (2024); Oralité et littérature dans la Corne de l'Afrique by Moussa Souleiman Obsieh (2022); 'Evoking the Body of the Disappeared in Assia Djebar and Nuruddin Farah,' in Narrating Human Rights in Africa by Eleni Coundouriotis (2021); The Postcolonial Animal: African Literature and Posthuman Ethics by Evan Maina Mwangi (2019); Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature by Cajetan Iheka (2018); Reading Nuruddin Farah: The Individual, the Novel & the Idea of Home by F. Fiona Moolla (2014); Disorder of Things: A Foucauldian Approach To The Work Of Nuruddin Farah by John Masterson (2013); Radical Eschatologies: Embracing the Eschaton in the Works of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Nuruddin Farah, and Ayi Kwei Armah by OP Dr. Sebastian Mahfood (2009); Emerging Perspectives on Nuruddin Farah, edited by Derek Wright (2002); Nuruddin Farah by Patricia Alden and Louis Tremaide (1999); 'Farah, Nuruddin' in Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Vol. 2, ed. Steven R. Serafin (1999); 'Nuruddin Farah' by Hema Chari, in Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Pushpa Naidu Parekh and Siga Fatima Jagne (1998); The Novels of Nuruddin Farah by Derek Wright (1994); 'The Novels of Nuruddin Farah' by Florence Stratton in World Literature Written in English (1985 ) Selected works:
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