Nuruddin Farah
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| Nuruddin Farah نور الدين فرح |
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 Nuruddin Farah in London, England in 1984. |
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| Born | Nuuradiin Faarax November 24, 1945 Baidoa, Somalia |
| Occupation | novelist, essayist, professor |
| Nationality |  Somalia |
| Ethnicity | Somali |
| Alma mater | Punjab University |
| Subjects | nationalism, colonialism, feminism |
| Notable work(s) | From a Crooked Rib, Secrets, Gifts |
| Notable award(s) | Kurt Tucholsky Prize, Lettre Ulysses Award, Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Premio Cavour, St. Malo Literature Festival Prize |
Nuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نور الدين فرح) (born 11-24-1945) is a Somali novelist particularly concerned with women's liberation in post-independence Somalia.
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[edit] Biography
Born in Baidoa, Farah is the son of a merchant father and a poet mother. As a child, he attended school at Kallafo in the Ogaden, and studied English, Arabic, and Amharic. In 1963, three years after Somalia's independence, Farah was forced to flee his home region of Ogadēn following serious border conflicts. For several years, he pursued a degree in literature and philosophy at India's Punjab University, Chandigarh. He later returned to teach in Mogadishu.
Around this time, Farah began his writing career with From a Crooked Rib (1970), the story of a nomad girl who flees from an arranged marriage to a much older man. The novel earned him mild but international acclaim. On a tour of Europe following the publication of A Naked Needle, Farah was warned that the Somali government planned to arrest him over its contents. Rather than return and face imprisonment, Farah began a self-imposed exile that would last for twenty-two years, teaching in the United States, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, Sudan, Gambia, and India.
Farah's later work consists of two trilogies of novels: "Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship," and "Blood in the Sun." "Variations" attacks the corruption of many authoritarian postcolonial African regimes, comparing them to the abuses of European colonialists; the trilogy also continues to explore gender issues, particularly the practice of female genital cutting.
Though "Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship" was well-received in a number of countries, Farah's reputation was cemented by his most famous novel, Maps (1986), the first novel of the Blood in the Sun trilogy. Maps, set during the Ogaden conflict of 1977, employs the technique of second-person narration for exploring questions of cultural identity in a postcolonial world. Farah followed the novel with Gifts (1993) and Secrets (1998).
In 2000, as suggested by Arne Ruth, editor of Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper, Farah penned Yesterday, Tomorrow, a narrative collection of tales from the Somali diaspora following the 1991 collapse of Mogadishu.
[edit] Awards
Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers. Having published many short stories, novels and essays, his prose has earned him, among other accolades, the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Sweden, and in 1998, the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year, the French edition of his novel Gifts also won the St. Malo Literature Festival’s prize.[1] Farah is also a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is one of the only major literary prizes he has yet to win.[2]
[edit] Works
- Why Die So Soon? (1965, novella)
- A Dagger in a Vacuum (1965, play)
- From a Crooked Rib (1970), ISBN 0-435-90080-3
- A Naked Needle (1976), ISBN 0-435-90184-2
- Variations on the Theme of An African Dictatorship (trilogy)
- Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), ISBN 1-55597-159-8
- Sardines (1981), ISBN 1-55597-161-X
- Close Sesame (1983), ISBN 1-55597-162-8
- Blood in the Sun (trilogy)
- Maps (1986), ISBN 0-14-029643-3
- Gifts (1993), ISBN 1-55970-484-5
- Secrets (1998), ISBN 1559704276
- Territories (2000), ISBN 2-84261-190-X
- Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (2000), ISBN 0-304-70701-5
- Trilogy
- Links, (2004) ISBN 1-57322-265-8
- Knots, (2007) ISBN 1594489246
[edit] Notes
- ^ Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage - Nuruddin Farah
- ^ Michael Eldridge, The Novels of Nuruddin Farah (review), Africa Today - Volume 52, Number 1, Fall 2005, pp. 141-143
[edit] References
- Alden, Patricia & Tremain, Louis. "Nuruddin Farah." Twayne's world authors series v.876. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1999.
- Wright, Derek. "The Novels of Nuruddin Farah." Bayreuth African Studies Vol 32, 2nd edition, Bayreuth: 200421:34
- Lettre Ulysses Award - Nuruddin Farah
[edit] External links
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