Nuruddin Farah

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Nuruddin Farah
نور الدين فرح
3Nuruddin Farah.jpg
Farah in 2010 before a lecture at Simon Fraser University.
Born Nuuradiin Faarax
(1945-11-24) November 24, 1945 (age 67)
Baidoa, Somalia
Occupation novelist, essayist, professor
Nationality  Somalia
Ethnicity Somali
Alma mater Panjab University
Subjects nationalism, colonialism, feminism
Notable work(s) From a Crooked Rib, Maps, Gifts, Secrets
Notable award(s) Kurt Tucholsky Prize, Lettre Ulysses Award, Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Premio Cavour, St. Malo Literature Festival Prize
Spouse(s) Chitra Muliyil (1970-72)
Amina Mama (1992-present)
Children Koschin (born 1971)
Abyan (born 1993)
Kaahiye (born 1995)

Nuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نور الدين فرح‎) (born November 24, 1945) is a prominent Somali novelist.[1] He was awarded the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Contents

Personal life[edit]

Farah was born in 1945 in Baidoa, Somalia. He is the son of a merchant father and a poet mother,[1] the fourth eldest boy in a large family.[2]

As a child, Farah frequented schools in Somalia and adjacent Ethiopia,[2] attending classes in Kallafo in the Ogaden. He studied English, Arabic, and Amharic. In 1963, three years after Somalia's independence, Farah was forced to flee the Ogaden following serious border conflicts. From 1966 to 1970, he pursued a degree in philosophy, literature and sociology at Panjab University in Chandigarh, India.[2]

Farah has two sons and a daughter.[3]

Literary career[edit]

Nuruddin Farah in London, England in 1984.

After releasing an early short story in his native Somali language, Farah shifted to writing in English while still attending university in India. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib (1970), told 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 (1976), 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, Sweden, Sudan, India and Nigeria. In 1990, he received a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service and moved to Berlin. In 1996, he visited Somalia for the first time in more than twenty years. He currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa.[4]

Farah describes his purpose for writing as an attempt "to keep my country alive by writing about it".[1] His trilogies of novels Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship (1980–1983) and Blood in the Sun (1986–1999) form the core of his work. Though Variations was well received in a number of countries, Farah's reputation was cemented by his most famous novel, Maps (1986), the first part of his Blood in the Sun trilogy. Maps, which is set during the Ogaden conflict of 1977, employs the innovative technique of second-person narration for exploring questions of cultural identity in a post-independence world. He followed the novel with Gifts (1993) and Secrets (1998), both of which earned awards. His most recent trilogy comprises Links (2004), Knots (2007) and Crossbones (2011).

Awards[edit]

Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world.[2] 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, the Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin, 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.[3] In addition, Farah is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is one of the only major literary prizes, for which he is eligible, that he has yet to win.[5]

Works[edit]

Blood of the Sun Triology: "Maps" Summary[edit]

Nuruddin Farah's "Maps" one of his novels from the Blood of The Sun Trilogy was the coming of age story of a young boy name Askar. Askar who was orphaned as a child found as both his parents were killed. Askar is raised by Misra (an Ethiopian outsider) and he becomes to see her as his "birth-mother" forming a bond with her that he believes can never be broken, a bond that can similar to that of twins,a cosmic bond but when the Ogaden war breaks out Askar is separated from Misra. As Aksar grows into adulthood he struggles with his identity, ethnicity and his loyalty; Askar is constantly asking himself: should he stay loyal to Misra, the one that protects him and raises him as her own or stay loyal to his people.[6]

The central theme of Maps is identity – personal, familial, and national. Nuruddin Farah uses all three narrative perspectives (first person, second person, and third person) throughout the novel to examine the theme of identity. Farah constructs this multilayered central theme of identity in various expressions: personal, familial, and national. Throughout the novel, Askar endeavors to comprehend his identity in a complicated environment of multiple and often times, transforming identities. With Askar, Farah poses questions such as – “Who am I?”, as identity becomes obscured doing colonial times. Farah asks this question in relation to another question “Who am I supposed to be?” to get at a larger question of whether emotional connection or familial heritage are of more importance to one’s identity. The tension between connection and heritage can be seen through Askar’s and Misra’s relationship. Despite of linguistic barriers, the fact that there is an unshakable connection, the fact that Askar knows when Misra is speaking endearingly as detailed on page 23, shows that some things are universal. This does not mean genetics are escapable though, nor is culture (linguistic/ethnic/geographic). Aw-Adwan and Misra have a connection based on Somali mutuality, that Askar envies and does not understand. Just like Askar has a genetic connection to his mother he never knew, as seen in their mutual fascination with water.[6]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Maya Jaggi (21 September 2012). "Nuruddin Farah: a life in writing". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 September 2012. 
  2. ^ a b c d Prentice-Hall, Inc. (editor) (2001). Literature Lover's Companion: The Essential Reference to the World's Greatest Writers -- Past and Present, Popular and Classical. Prentice Hall Press. p. 200. ISBN 073520229X. 
  3. ^ a b Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage - Nuruddin Farah
  4. ^ The Penguin Speaker's Bureau. Penguin Group
  5. ^ Michael Eldridge, "The Novels of Nuruddin Farah (review)", Africa Today - Volume 52, Number 1, Fall 2005, pp. 141–143.
  6. ^ a b Farah, Nuruddin. Maps. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nuruddin Farah
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nuruddin Farah
Authority control
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuruddin_Farah&oldid=539761499"