Nuruddin Farah
Nuruddin Farah is a prominent Somali author born in 1945 in Baidoa, Somalia. He grew up in a multilingual environment, learning various languages, which played a significant role in his literary career. Farah's first novel, *From a Crooked Rib*, published in 1970, marked a significant moment in Somali literature, being the first work of fiction by a Somali writer released in English. His early works often addressed themes of feminism and the political landscape of Somalia, particularly during the tumultuous period of the Somalian Revolution.
Exiled for over two decades due to censorship and political oppression, Farah lived in various countries before returning to Somalia in 1996. His literary contributions include several trilogies, such as *Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship* and *Blood in the Sun*, which explore the impacts of war and tyranny on society. Farah's later works, such as *Hiding in Plain Sight* and *North of Dawn*, continue to reflect on contemporary issues, including terrorism and familial responsibility. He divides his time between Cape Town and New York, where he teaches and remains actively engaged in literary and humanitarian efforts. Farah has received numerous accolades for his work, solidifying his status as a critical voice in literature.
Nuruddin Farah
Somali-born novelist and playwright.
- Born: November 24, 1945
- Place of Birth: Baidoa, Somalia
Biography
Nuruddin Farah was born in 1945 in the town of Baidoa in Somalia, the son of an interpreter turned farmer and his poet wife. He and his family lived for a few years in Ogaden in British Somaliland (now Ethiopia) and returned to independent Somalia in 1963. Given an intensive education, Farah not only learned Somali but also Amharic, Italian, Arabic, and English.
After a year working as a clerk, Farah moved to India to study literature and philosophy at Punjab University. Before leaving India, he married Chitra Muliyil, a fellow student and an Indian; the couple had one son, Koschin. Farah graduated in 1970 and returned to Somalia to teach.
Farah had written a play, A Dagger in Vacuum, during an earlier return home but was not allowed to produce it. In 1970, however, his first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published, the first work of fiction by a Somali writer to be published in English. The novel tells the story of a Somali woman trapped in an arranged marriage to an elderly man she does not love; it was widely hailed as a work of prescient feminism in the international press. However, the novel was published at the time of the Somalian Revolution, when the democratic government was replaced by a dictatorship and there was some pushback from Somali women who were displeased at Farah's depiction of female genital mutilation. Farah’s next book, written in Somali and published serially in newspapers, was censored by the government. During this period, he divorced his wife.
After winning a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) fellowship from the United Nations, Farah moved to England by himself. He would remain an exile from Somalia for more than twenty years. He studied theater in a postgraduate curriculum at the University of London and subsequently his play, The Offering, was produced at the University of Essex in 1975. Later, another play, A Spread of Butter, would be broadcast on the radio by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) African Service.
Farah’s second English-language novel, A Naked Needle, was published in 1976. He felt this book was a compromise with the oppressive Somali government and was not pleased with it; the government, for its part, so reviled the work that it became unsafe for Farah to return to Somalia as anticipated. However, he allowed himself free rein in his 1979 novel, Sweet and Sour Milk, the first in his Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship trilogy. Although he won the English-Speaking Union Award for the novel, its political nature guaranteed that he would have to remain in exile. The next novel in the trilogy, Sardines, further indicts tyranny and again shows Farah’s feminist sympathy for Somali women. The final volume of the trilogy, Close Sesame, compares the colonial imperialism of the British and Italian governments to the dictatorship then in control of Somalia.
Farah’s novels would continue to combat tyranny and oppression. He would not return to his homeland until 1996, well after the end of President Siad Barre’s dictatorship, and even then his return was not permanent. He remarried in 1992, and after years spent in England, Italy, Sudan, Uganda, Germany, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, he and his family settled in Cape Town, South Africa. This marriage, too, ended in separation, however.
Farah completed a second trilogy, entitled Blood in the Sun, in 1998. These books, which encompasses Maps (1986), Gifts (1993), and Secrets (1998), deal with how war and famine can elicit the worst impulses in human beings. Links (2004), the first book in his clan-warfare trilogy Past Imperfect, tells of the fall of Siad Barre and paints an alternate vision of the US Marine intervention of 1993. The second and third books, Knots (2006) and Crossbones (2012), describe the rise of Islamists to power in the country and its sociopolitical ramifications.
In Farah's 2014 novel Hiding in Plain Sight, his twelfth, the protagonist becomes caretaker of her brother's children after he falls victim to a suicide bombing. By an unfortunate coincidence, Farah's own sister Basra, a UNICEF worker, died in a terrorist attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, around the time that Farah submitted the manuscript for publication. He has since established a foundation to help women and children in her honor. Farah followed Hiding in Plain Sight with his nonfiction article This I What Hunger Looks Like - Again, which was published by the New York Times in August 2017. The author then published his next novel, North of Dawn, in 2018.
Personal Life
Farah divides his time between Cape Town, South Africa, and New York, where he teaches at Bard College. He visits Somalia frequently. Farah's work has received critical recognition throughout his career, and his honors include the 1991 Tucholsky Prize from PEN Sweden, the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 2006 Lettre Ulysses Award for the art of reportage.
Author Works
Drama:
A Dagger in Vacuum, pr. 1970
The Offering, pr. 1975
Yussuf and His Brothers, pr. 1982
Long Fiction:
From a Crooked Rib, 1970
A Naked Needle, 1976
Sweet and Sour Milk, 1979
Sardines, 1981
Close Sesame, 1983
Maps, 1986
Gavor, 1990
Secrets, 1998
Gifts, 1999
Links, 2004
Knots, 2006
Crossbones, 2012
Hiding in Plain Sight, 2014
North of Dawn, 2018
Nonfiction:
Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora, 2000
This Is What Hunger Looks Like - Again, 2017
Radio Play:
A Spread of Butter, 1978
Tartar Delight, 1980
Bibliography
Alden, Patricia, and Louis Tremaine. Nuruddin Farah. New York: Twayne, 1999. Print.
Farah, Nuruddin. Interview by Kwame Anthony Appiah. BOMB. BOMB Magazine, 2004. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Farah, Nuruddin. "Misconceptions of Somalia." Interview. BBC World Service Outlook. BBC, 3 June 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Farah, Nuruddin. "Novelist Nuruddin Farah: Facing a Blank Page Is 'Bravest Thing' a Writer Does." Interview by Scott Simon. Weekend Edition Saturday. NPR, 25 Oct. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Jaggi, Maya. "Nuruddin Farah: A Life in Writing." Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 21 Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Moolla, F. Fiona. Reading Nuruddin Farah: The Individual, the Novel & the Idea of Home. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2014 Digital file.
Pilling, David. "Nuruddin Farah: 'I Can Live Without my Books. They Make Their Own Friends.'" Financial Times, 10 Mar. 2023, www.ft.com/content/36413a25-8df5-46f6-85be-4e9c00793f1a. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.