BOOK REVIEW: World-weary Farah sets out the lineaments of alienation

Novels seldom feel so contemporary: I meet Somalian author Nuruddin Farah in circumstances which darken the day, news having broken of the far-right terror attack in New Zealand which killed 49 people at prayer. , envelops issues which the news has brought acutely, awfully, into focus. I’m conscious, too, of how he must feel on a personal level, as the novel is dedicated to his sister, killed in a terrorist atrocity five years ago in Kabul.

Havoc has been synonymous with Somalia for nearly three decades. “In 1993, when George Bush sent troops to do what he called God’s work, the civil war was petering out. But the American presence gave a leg up to the warlord Mohamed Aidid and extended the hostilities. The fabric of Somalia was smashed into smithereens,” Farah laments.

Somalia’s geostrategic location has contributed to its destabilisation. Its coast hosts Suez Canal, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping lanes, and proximity to the Arabian Peninsula oil fields draws increasing involvement of global powers as the Horn of Africa becomes enmeshed in the Middle East’s enmities and complexities. Somalia was largely secular before the civil war, but hostilities have hardened attitudes and strict Islamic sensibilities have infiltrated the country.

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